


Scratching the Surface

by Pey119



Series: STS [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Demigods (Percy Jackson), Complete, Cute Kids, Dead Annabeth Chase, Dead Hazel Levesque, Dead Nico di Angelo, Dead Percy Jackson, F/M, Frank Zhang Dies, Ghost Nico di Angelo, Married Couple, Nico Feels, Nico di Angelo & Piper McLean Friendship, Nico di Angelo Dies, Past Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Poor Nico, Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 11:58:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 26,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19228705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pey119/pseuds/Pey119
Summary: Piper, Jason, and their kids are moving into a new house, but not everything is as it seems. They didn't used to believe in ghosts. If needed, a trigger warning will be at the top of that specific chapter.





	1. Chapter 1

Jason pulled up to the house with anxiety and excitement bubbling under his skin. If the add was right, if the price actually was that low, he may have found the deal of a lifetime. He may be able to give his family an amazing life, after all.

Piper wasn't with him, nor were their two kids. Before getting their hopes up, he wanted to make sure everything would work. With a house this cheap, there were hundreds of things that could go wrong. Plumbing, electrics, mice, bats, and a hundred other things that were a home owner's nightmare. Despite the money, these were the reasons he had never attempted to buy a house before.

He had brought his best friend, however. Leo could look at any machine and immediately pick out the broken parts. Jason hoped that Leo could point out if anything was seriously wrong with the house, especially because he was planning on taking his family there. He wasn't going to risk his family for any house, no matter how large it was.

They pulled into the gravel driveway, unable to see the house yet through the large willow trees. They lined the pathway and blocked out the sun, but were beautiful in their own way.

"You're sure this is the right one?" Leo asked for the hundredth time. "This is insane."

"I'm sure." Jason tapped the screen of his GPS. "The realtor should already be here. She said...wow..." The breath was knocked out of him when he saw the house that came into view. He had seen the square miles but had never seen a picture and had never even dreamed it could actually be that big.

The house that loomed over them looked to be four stories tall and as wide as a mansion. Beaten down wood seemed to be the main foundation, with misty panels of glass as windows. The double doors leading into the house were tall and red, with a brass knocker on each one.

"It ain't April Fools Day, Jason." Leo moved his grease-stained hand to the GPS. "Let's type the real address in before these people see us."

"This is the real address." Jason insisted. He pointed to the car that sat at the end of the driveway. "See? The realtor's here to show us around."

The woman in question was standing on the porch, her red hair up in a bun and her fingernails tapping the wooden railing. A bag sat at her feet with a clipboard protruding from it, with a suspicious looking paper on top. The words at the top of the page were in bold and read "IN CASE OF AN ENCOUNTER, DON'T PANIC. JUST FOLLOW THESE STEPS:"

"Wonder what that 'encounter' is with," Jason mumbled, putting his car in park. "Rats, mice."

"Probably ghosts," Leo joked, his smirk returning to his face. "That'd be quite a paper, don't you think? In case of an encounter with the spirit of death, don't panic! Follow these simple instructions. Step one, RUN OUT AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE! DON'T LOOK BACK FOR NOTHING, YOU WIMP!"

"Why are we friends?" Jason mused, rubbing his right ear. "In a year I'll be deaf from you."

"You'll be able to say you truly lived." Leo jumped out of the car, his worn boots hitting the crackling pavement with a small thump. "Sorry, dude, but I may have just abused your driveway."

"It needs repaving anyways." Jason closed his car doors and locked them. "Come on, let's get this over with."

"If you don't take this place, I will."

Jason elbowed him in the stomach before walking up to the porch, frowning at the creaking stairs. "Miss Dare, good morning."

The woman stopped tapping her fingers to look up at him, her smile looking as fake as the one plastered on Jason's boss. "Good morning. You must be Mr. Grace." She reached out and shook his hand.

Jason nodded and gestured to Leo when they dropped hands. "I also brought my friend. He's good at making sure everything is...running right."

"Good, good." Miss Dare nodded politely to Leo before getting her keys out. "Should we head in? There's a lot of ground to cover, I'm sure you see."

"Yeah, yeah." Jason looked to Leo before following the woman into the house. "When was this place built, did you say?"

"The early sixteen hundreds. Electricity has been added in, of course, with heating, but those are the only things that have been changed." She looked over at them, smiling. "It's very antique, you could say. A home for a history lover."

They stood in a large parlor with two staircases leading up to the second-floor landing. Everything was wood, with red rugs and chipped walls. The chandelier that hung from the ceiling swung slightly, creating an eerie creaking noise that vibrated throughout the room. When Miss Dare shut the door, the wind stopped blowing it. They were suddenly plunged into silence.

"It's...a lot." Jason choked out, finding the need to fill the silence with any words he could think of. "A lot for something so cheap."

"The price has gone down throughout the years." Miss Dare admitted. "But people have been so hesitant to buy something so old when there are new houses being built every day. We just haven't been able to get a sale."

Leo walked further in and swept his gaze around the room. "Has the wood been checked? Termites and everything?"

"Yes, of course. I have all the paperwork to prove it." she patted her bag gently. "Shall we continue with the tour?"

The rooms they walked through all amazed Jason to no end. The large living room, the medium sized living room, the smaller living room, the patio sitting room. It was like the home was built with the goal of creating the largest house possible. The main living room was right off the parlor and was Jason's favorite. A bar was on one side of the room, the wall behind it stocked with every alcohol you could imagine. Wines were labeled from a hundred years ago. There was a space above the fireplace that was the perfect spot for a mounted TV, but no electronics seemed in sight. Not even an old radio.

"Nice place," Leo walked in and kneeled down by the fireplace. "Let's see if we can get this baby to work."

"Oh, it does." Miss Dare smiled, but this time it actually looked in humor. "Those were their only source of heat back then, so it damned well better work great."

When Leo figured out how to light it, he proved her right. Instantly, Jason felt the room grow hotter than the summer air had already made it.

"That's enough of that." Jason moved to a window and opened it as wide as he could. "It's like a hundred degrees in here."

"We could install some air conditioning." Leo busied himself with putting out the fire. "But at least it has heating."

Jason crossed his arms but nodded. "Our air conditioning at the apartment wasn't the greatest, anyways. We'll get through with box fans and ice cubes."

"You have a family?" Miss Dare asked. "Kids?"

Jason nodded. "A wife and two little girls. I think they'll love it here, if it's safe."

"As safe as an old house can get."

He wasn't sure if she was joking or not but smiled politely at her before moving to the only other hallway he saw. "Let's keep going."

The dark hallway led to an even darker dining room and then a bright kitchen, windows everywhere. Old pots and pans hung in a rack above the island and flower wallpaper clung to the walls. It was the only wallpaper so far in the entire house.

"Pipes would like this." Jason ran his hand over the island, frowning at the amount of dust he picked up. "She would like a big kitchen, I think. She's an amazing cook."

"Have her make me a meal and I'll get a good fridge in here." Leo insisted. "This one has one from the 90's."

"That was from the last family that lived here." Miss Dare explained. "It was never moved out so here it stays."

"I'll have her cook you the best enchiladas you could imagine." Jason patted Leo's shoulder before pointing to the door beside the stove. "Does that go to the backyard?"

Miss Dare seemed to enjoy any escape from the house that she could find. "Yes, yes it does. Let's head back there." She speed walked for the door and opened it wide, creating a breeze through the kitchen. In the wind, they could hear a wind chime singing away. "Let's take a break and look out here, shall we?"


	2. Chapter 2

Jason wanted to trust it, he really did, but he couldn't feel comfortable for one minute in the general area of the house. Even after he stepped outside, the dread didn't lift from his chest like it would in any horror movie. If anything, the wind chime made everything worse as he stared the forest face down.

The forest right behind where a backyard was supposed to be.

"Do I see a barn and a perfect spot for a remote mechanic shop? I do!" Leo moved a hand over his eyes to block out the scorching sun. "Look at that, Jason. I'll be coming over a lot more."

Jason looked to Miss Dare. "All this land is ours?"

She nodded, her smile starting to seem unnerving. "Up until halfway through that forest. They'll be a fence to let you know exactly where."

Jason nodded before looking in front of him again. The actual backyard was decent sized, with an old playset and a barn in the distance. Behind that, a dense forest rose from the dead grass. The annoying wind chime was hanging from the house.

"Can I take that down?" Jason asked suddenly, gesturing to the old metal. "It's driving me insane."

Miss Dare looked like she wanted to argue and agree at the same time. Her red-glossed lips pursed, and her arms crossed and uncrossed repeatedly. "Well, you see...that's been here since the house was built. I would wait until you're sure you're going to buy it, okay?"

Her voice let Jason know that nothing was okay with that statement.

Leo whistled under his breath. "Don't want to piss those ghosts off, huh, Jason?"

Miss Dare's eyes widened slightly. "Excuse me?"

"Inside joke," Jason assured her. "How about we head back inside? If I'm not home at a reasonable time, Piper will kill me."

"First she'd see who you were with, then she'd kill you." Leo corrected, walking past him and into the house. "And then we'd dance over your grave."

" _We_? Okay, that's rude." Jason ran into the house to catch up to Leo. "Where are you running off to?"

"I want to see the upstairs," Leo stated. "This place is huge and old as hell. I want to see what I can find."

"We don't have the time to go scavenger hunting." Jason hissed quietly, trying not to let Miss Dare hear them. "We need to act professionally if they're going to sell this to me."

"So you're getting it?!" Leo's eyes brightened as if Jason just told him all his favorite comic books were real. "That's amazing!"

Jason covered his mouth, frowning. "If you don't find anything else wrong with this place. So I want you to look at the furnace and the plumbing. Can you do that?"

Leo mumbled into Jason's hand, his words coming out in an angry grumble of vowels that Jason wasn't entirely sure were English. When Jason was sure Leo wasn't going to yell out anything else he let the shorter man go with reluctance.

"Are you two ready to go upstairs?" Miss Dare asked, having been looking around the room as if waiting for something to pop out at them. "Or do you want to see the basement?"

"Basement." Jason quickly replied. "I don't have time for everything today. Maybe another day. But I want to make sure everything is in good shape."

The basement door was located off the kitchen, the old wooden paneling chipped and faded. Suspicious stains marked the bottom, but most looked to have been scrubbed off. When she put the key in the door and pulled it open, a large groan echoed from it scraping against the floor.

"The key's there to keep it locked up. The stairs are pretty steep for children," the realtor explained as she flipped the light switch. "You two can head down if you'd like. My knees won't make it far."

She couldn't have been older than Jason or Leo, but neither argued with her choice. A moment alone to look around was surprisingly refreshing. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Jason realized most of his anxiety was because of her anxiety. His body wanted to be nervous because someone in close proximity was.

"The furnace looks alright." Leo broke Jason out of his thoughts. He was crouched between the furnace and the hot water tank, a wrench he had gotten from his pocket used to poke the two machines. "Nothing too old or nothin'."

The basement was small for the house, but nothing Jason was complaining about. One side was nicely renovated, with carpet and okay walls. The other held the less exciting things: the furnace, hot water tank, laundry shoot, washer and dryer, and a slightly odd stack of wooden slabs that looked to be falling apart.

"But I say replace these." Leo kicked the washing machine, his face scrunched up. "Too old for my liking."

"Do you really think I should do this?" Jason asked suddenly. "I don't know...I just have a bad feeling."

"Because you've grown too fond of that apartment." Leo waved his hands as if he could explain everything in existence. "You just need to take the chance. Look, I'll even put in some of my money. Deal?"

Jason sighed heavily, looking towards the creeky ceiling. "Something's wrong with this place."

"Something's wrong with the _realtor._ " Leo corrected. "She's just looney."

"That's not it." Jason walked towards the wall and put his hand against it. "There's a reason this house is so cheap. There's some history here."

The wall was chipped and cold, wood shavings that no one bothered to sweep up in a pile at his feet. He moved his hand down the wall as he walked to Leo, frowning at how some parts were just...warm. Disturbingly warm. If Jason was a different person, he would have admitted that he felt a heartbeat there that day. But being who he was he quickly wrote it off as his imagination, and he quickly ascended the stairs with Leo.

When Miss Dare went to lock up after the men had left, she noticed the small pool of blood seeping out from under the wall where Jason had stood.


	3. Chapter 3

Miss Dare looked around the kitchen of the old house, her face pale against her red hair. "That man bought the house. His name is Jason, so you know. He has a wife and two daughters."

The melancholy voice filled the room in a low whisper. "I know, Rachel." A wind swept through and lifted the curtains, fluttering through her fallen hair. "You did good."

A smile graced her lips when she heard his attitude. "Please don't run him out. I think this will be a good fit."

"I wasn't planning to." the voice responded, no speaker in sight. "They'll tear this place down if it gets too bad."

"Exactly." Rachel tied her hair up in a loose ponytail before picking her bag up. "I'm going to get going if that's alright with you. I should get home."

"Wait." The doors slammed shut, but Rachel didn't get too worried. She was used to it. "Did you find out? About his grave."

Rachel shook her head. "I'm sorry, Nico. I'll try to let you know if I do, but it seems like a lost cause. He just...disappeared from history."

"I understand." The voice became even sadder than usual as the doors slammed open again. "Please leave now, Rachel."

~~~~~~~

Jason and Piper started packing the little things they had as soon as Jason did the paperwork. They didn't need to bring furniture━the house was already full of it as if nobody ever moved out━so they packed only their personal belongings and anything else that meant anything to them. In the moving truck, they brought all their children's furniture incase the house hadn't had children before.

The day they got the keys, they packed the moving truck and drove.

"Jason, promise me again," Piper demanded quietly as they got closer to their new house. Her choppy hair was in a couple braids and her white teeth flashed behind pale lips. "Promise me that this house is good."

"I promise." he glanced away from the road to give her a smile. "It's our new start."

Piper looked back to check that the kids were still asleep in their car seats before grabbing Jason's hand. "It's safe for the girls? No mold or carbon monoxide or anything?"

He nodded. "Safe as our apartment was. If not safer."

"It is good to get away from the city." Piper agreed. She looked out the window to the rolling countryside, her hand moving to pick at her lips nervously. "But only if it's safe. If something happens, no one will be around."

"There's a neighbor a mile down the road." Jason didn't know if that helped or not, but couldn't take it back. "I mean, it's not like we're completely alone. And we won't need anyone."

"I hope you're right." Piper rested her head on her hand and stared out the window again, dropping the conversation. She knew as well as he did that they couldn't go back. Their money had gone into this house and their apartment wasn't theirs anymore. They had nowhere else to go.

Jason eventually pulled into the dark driveway under the canopy of willow trees. He could tell Piper liked it just from her face but decided not to comment. He didn't want to somehow ruin that.

"Jason, is this-" Piper was cut off from their youngest daughter's loud sobs. The six-month-old girl had awoken from her nap, only to be met with the sudden darkness from the trees.

"Maddie, it's okay." Piper unbuckled before climbing into the backseat with her daughters. "I'm right here." She kissed her youngest girl on the forehead before holding her chubby hand.

Jason turned the lights inside the car on. "Pipes, be careful."

"I unbuckled in our driveway, Jason. I think I'm fine." Piper kept close to Maddie before looking to the other girl. "Katie, did Maddie wake you up?"

The four-year-old nodded but didn't seem scared. "Are we there yet?" Her speaking was getting better, no doubt, but Piper still had a hard time understanding her.

"This is our driveway." Piper's voice switched to how she would read them bedtime stories. "And it leads up to a really big and pretty house."

"Really?!" Katie sat up more to look out the window.

Piper nodded. "And guess what? Daddy said it even has a balcony."

Katie's eyes widened, no doubt every story of a princess at a balcony filling her mind. "Mine?"

"I don't know yet, sweetie, but we'll see." Piper kissed her head before kissing Maddie's again. Before she could think of anything else to comfort the poor girl, the trees gave away and the sun shone again. Jason turned the light off and Maddie stopped crying, but Piper hardly noticed. She couldn't look away from that house...

She felt like Katie did. She felt like they were royalty.

"Well?" Jason pulled the car as close to the house as he could get, the moving truck that Leo drove parking right behind them. "Let's get going so we can be done by dark."

Piper helped the girls out of the car, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. Katie bounced around her with her doll flying with her, and Maddie clung to her mother.

"So you like it, Pipes?" Jason asked, going to his wife. "I made the right choice?"

Piper smacked his arm gently. "Of course you did, you idiot. But how did you pay so little? Who did you kill for this place?"

Jason laughed, but his laughter hid the uneasiness that filled his chest again. He felt like him and his family was being watched, but from the house itself. His mind kept going back to what Leo had joked about the month before, how ghosts could have been what Miss Dare had been fearing. But he didn't believe in ghosts, and neither did Piper. They believed in what they could see.

But something told Jason that this wasn't right.

~~~~~~~~

Nico watched out of the third-floor window, his eyes as dark as the room around him. That new man, Jason, stood with his wife and daughters as if he owned the place. As if he owned Nico's house.

Bringing a hand to his neck, Nico rubbed the area with raw remembrance. He knew someone had to live there for the house to remain standing, but hated the idea of anyone living amongst the rooms and the shadows that Nico had been filtering through for hundreds of years.

"Jason Grace...it's nowhere near a pleasure to meet you."


	4. Chapter 4

The first night in the house was the hardest.

Jason and Piper put the kids to bed in the same room, the toddler bed and crib sitting right next to each other. They had brought both and Piper insisted that the girls sleep in them, the two kids used to them as much as Piper was used to Jason. Warm milk and a bedtime story later, the kids were both asleep under the soft glow of the nightlight plugged into the wall.

Once sure that the kids were sound asleep, Piper and Jason went to their own room down the hall. It was the master bedroom and was full of furniture, so the only thing they added was the boxes of their clothes. The bed was a large four poster, with silk red curtains and a matching bedspread. A rug of the same color covered the wooden floor and gave them relief from the constant hardness on their feet.

When they laid down to sleep, Jason couldn't get comfortable even though his body sunk into the bed. He felt like someone was watching him, watching his moves and his thoughts and his actions. It was hard to sleep thinking that every move you made was somehow wrong in the eyes of someone else.

Piper slept well beside him, her soft breathing tickling the skin on his neck. She didn't seem fazed in the least by the weird energy, or she was exhausted from watching the girls all day. Either way, Jason was alone in his fear all night.

At one point, in his half-asleep daze of reality, he thought he saw someone in the doorway staring at him. The figure didn't move, didn't speak, and didn't last long. In seconds it was gone. He eventually fell asleep, but he couldn't get that figure out of his mind. It haunted his dreams until Piper woke him up in the morning.

"Jason," Piper's hair falling into his face woke him from the vivid dreams. "I need to go to the store. The girls are hungry."

Jason groaned softly, his eyes cracking open to the pale sunlight that filtered into the room. "Pipes, what time is it?"

"I would know if you had put an alarm clock in here." His wife was already dressed and ready to go out, Maddie on her hip and Katie sitting on the bed by her. "You need to get up and start unpacking while I'm gone."

"Pipeeerrrr." Jason groaned, rolling onto his stomach. "I was up all night. Can't that wait?"

"You want to show your kids that things can wait because you're lazy?" Piper asked, gesturing to Katie beside her. "I mean if that's the message you want to put out there..."

"Fine, I'm up." Jason pulled himself up so he was sitting by Katie, his feet hanging off the bed. "You all have fun at the store. The directions are in the car."

"I know, I saw them." Piper's face turned sour. "I never dreamed of having to drive so long to get there."

"Make sure you don't forget anything." Jason teased, moving a hand to rub the top of Katie's head. "Good morning, sweetheart."

Katie swatted at his hand, her blue eyes drained and tired. "Bad dreams last night, daddy."

"Come on, Katie." Piper moved a hand to her daughter and turned her to the door, no doubt trying to keep her mind off of the nightmares. "Let's go pick out some food. Then we can cook together in the new kitchen. Sound fun?"

"Imma sleep," Katie mumbled, her head against Piper's leg as they exited the room. Piper blew one last kiss to Jason before disappearing down the hallway, leaving him alone in the room with nothing but his fears. In ten minutes, he heard the car doors close and the sound of the tires crunching against the gravel.

Jason sighed as he stood off the bed and stretched, his tan arms absorbing the dull light from the floor lamp in the corner. Everything was quiet, but not peaceful. He missed feeling safe in his own home.

With nothing to eat in the new fridge or the cupboards, Jason pulled a box of cereal out of one of the moving boxes and ate it dry as he paced in the main living room. There was a lot to do, including a full walkthrough of the house. He had touched the main parts with the realtor, yes, but he felt like he hadn't seen most of it. If he was ever going to get comfortable there then he needed to know exactly what was there.

After he finished the box of cereal he tossed it aside and headed upstairs. The second floor of the house seemed reasonable, with a hallway that eventually formed a circle. Off of it were different rooms. Near the end, another staircase led to the next floor.

"Okay, let's see." Jason traced his steps back to his bedroom and then to the one his daughters currently shared, sweeping them over to make sure that they were safe. His and Piper's was reasonable, but there were a couple drawers that were locked in the wardrobe and a door that wouldn't open. As much as he tried to open it, the wooden slab stayed rooted to the wall as if it was super glued there.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Nico watched the man as he struggled to open the door, a small smirk plastered on his pale face. It may be Jason's house now, but Nico wasn't going to let the man snoop through his parents' things. He had tucked everything important away where nobody would find it, but apparently, Jason decided to push his luck.

A short laugh escaped Nico's lips when Jason got a splinter, his large hand having slide across the wooden door painfully. It wasn't that smooth wood you could now get, but a large wooden slab that looked like it had just came off the tree. Nico had had to improvise, and it worked in the end.

Having accidentally given himself too much substance, Nico's laugh was faintly heard by the blond it was directed at. Jason's whole body froze, even his whimpers of annoyance ceasing to come out. After a minute he turned around to see if he could find the culprit, but Nico kept himself invisible. For now, at least. He had to see what this family could offer.


	5. Chapter 5

The second day in the house, Piper was left alone for the first time as Jason took the girls to their check-up at the doctor's office. She offered to stay home to work on the house, to hang pictures and finish unpacking all their clothes. When she was done with that she went up and began to work on the girls' room, sweeping all the dust up and organizing their things so it didn't look like everything was packed away.

The room they had picked for the girls to share was a medium sized bedroom that had been empty besides the rocking chair in the corner and the faded purple wallpaper that clung to the walls. The chair freaked Piper out a little but she kept it in the corner, setting up some of the kids' stuffed animals on it. It didn't move by itself and seemed pretty sturdy, and looked to be hand painted. It was actually one of Piper's favorite things about the house.

"There, that looks better," Piper muttered to herself, wiping her moist forehead with the bottom of her shirt. It hadn't taken long to set their room up but it seemed to be more work than she was used to. Back at the apartment she cooked and cleaned and watched the girls (which proved very tiring), but never actually did physical labor much except for cleaning up after the girls. There wasn't much they were allowed to work on. The landlord had made it known that they weren't allowed to install anything or change the apartment up one bit. So it had been pretty simple and carefree.

Nothing about this new house was simple. It was large and old, with enough space for the kids to run off and get lost in. Not to mention that slightly...off feeling. It felt like it wasn't her house to live in.

A large thud from above her shook her out of her thoughts and caused her to start slightly. She hadn't even peeked into the third floor yet, knowing she would never need it for anything as long as they lived there.

Piper almost wrote it off as the wind before it happened again, this time louder. It almost sounded like someone was jumping with all their weight, trying to get her attention to them. It didn't sound like an animal or something had fallen, but as if a person was up there waiting to strike.

A person...in her house.

"There isn't even money to take." Piper looked around before quietly walking to her room, getting Jason's gun out of the bedside table. It was one of the first things they unpacked, loaded and ready to fire at will. As long as the girls couldn't reach it, Piper enjoyed having it. It made her feel safe (no offense to Jason, but she liked being able to rely on herself).

Piper made her way to the staircase at the end of the hallway, holding the gun out with shaking hands. She knew how to shoot it and to aim well but didn't necessarily like the idea of killing anybody. That's why she had taken that class at her college. She knew where to shoot to hurt but not kill, to disarm and to disable. It turned out to be pretty easy.

The stairs leading to the third floor had the same red carpet on them but didn't creak as she ascended them. They seemed less used but more kept up, the wood clean besides dust and not stained. She hated stains in wood, especially the one on the kitchen floor.

Piper got to the top of the stairs and looked around the shadowed hallway, frowning at the new layout this floor held. It seemed like a new hallway branched off every couple of feet, filling the space with a never-ending amount of doors. The hallways up here were decorated differently also, with benches here and there and large paintings of who Piper assumed to be the first owners. Sometimes, a tapestry hung from the ceiling to the floor.

"Who's here?!" Piper yelled, strangely calm besides the circumstances. "We've got no money if that's what you're trying to find. Hell, I'll look with you."

Nothing made a noise, not even the birds that seemed to never shut up outside. After a minute Piper took a step down the main hallway, trying to make her presence known. "I have a gun. I suggest you make your way towards the exit with your hands in the air. Now."

The thud came again, louder this time. Piper followed the noise as fast as she could to a back hallway, eventually getting to a corner with no windows and very faded light. Old holders for candles clung to the walls and dust covered every inch of material. It felt like she had just stepped into something of the Medieval times.

"Who's here?! Maybe you lived here when it was vacant, but it's not vacant anymore! This is my family's house and you're damned well mistaken if you think I'm going to let you live here any longer!" Piper ran when the next sound came, smirking in victory when she got to the door it was coming from. It was closed but looked too old for a lock to still be intact, a soft glow leaking through the crack at the bottom.

Throwing the door open, Piper held the gun up. "Got yo-... That doesn't make sense." Breathing out in confusion, Piper looked around the empty room. There was nowhere for anyone to hide and no doors for anyone to escape through. The room was just as empty as the day as it had been built.

The sound had come from in there, she was sure of it, but nothing was there to have made the noise. Not even a book to have fallen or a window to have created a draft.

~~~~~~~~~~

Later that day, Piper was making dinner while Jason worked on the basement with Leo. She could see her girls in the backyard through the many windows, them having been allowed out there under two ground rules: someone had to be watching and they couldn't step foot in the forest. When it came to safety, Piper was more strict then she liked to admit.

Her eyes did go off the girls multiple times, however, when she forgot to watch out for them. Working the stove took all her attention for a good ten minutes as she tried to figure out how to work it, and then another ten when she started boiling the water and preheating the oven. It filled the room with the smell of gas and would raise their gas bill beyond belief, but that was all they had at the moment. They didn't have enough money to get a new stove and had been lucky to get a refrigerator from Leo. They didn't have anything else to put into the house.

When she finally looked back into the yard to check on Katie and Maddie, her heart stopped when she only saw Maddie sitting there with her dolls. Katie was nowhere in sight and her voice couldn't be heard over the raging winds that had decided to come in.

"Katie!" Piper ran from the house and into the yard, picking Maddie up into her arms. "Baby, where did Katie go? Tell me where Katie went, Maddie."

The toddler confirmed her suspicions as she pointed towards the forest, her chubby finger shaking from the sternness in Piper's voice. "I sorry-"

Piper sat her down before she could finish speaking and ran into the forest, her heart racing faster than the sounds of the woodpeckers that seemed to fill the forest. The dirt trail that she followed seemed old and abandoned, overgrown with twigs that ripped at her pants and some plants that were probably poisonous. When she was busy looking down to try and find her daughter's footprints, she ran right into said girl with a dull thud as they crashed to the forest floor.

Piper laid there for a minute as she tried to catch her bearings, her head aching now against the dirty ground. A mound of brown hair filled her vision and stuck in her mouth, tasting like the strawberry shampoo she always used on her girls.

"Ow!" Katie's gasp of pain brought her back to reality. "Get off me!"

"Katie!" Piper dragged her legs off the small girl and brought her onto her lap. "Katie, are you hurt?"

Katie shook her head as she let Piper look her over. When Piper was sure there was nothing worse than a few bumps and bruises, she put her forehead against Katie's. "Katie...remember the rules I told you?"

Tears started to pool from Katie's eyes. "Don't go in the woods."

"Then why did you? You scared me to death!" Piper wiped Katie's tears from her face. "You could have gotten lost or killed! Anything could have happened!"

"I'm sorry!" Katie yelled, her gasps of breath turning into sobs. "I'm sorry! I just wanted to play!"

"In the forest? There's nothing safe to play with in here, Katie. You should have just stayed with your sister." Piper instructed. "Never go in here again. You hear me?"

"But my friend lives in here!" Katie protested. "I just wanted to play with my friend! She said she'd keep me safe, mommy. She said she'd keep me safe..."

Piper stood from the ground while keeping Katie in her arms, her legs shaking beneath her. "Let's finish this conversation inside, Katie. We've left Maddie alone long enough."

"But I never said goodbye!" Katie laid her head on Piper's shoulder and looked into the forest mournfully. "She has no friends...I wanted to be her friend."

"We'll talk more about this, I promise." Piper made her way down the path towards the house. "We need to go inside, now."

"Am I in trouble?" Katie asked.

"Your dad's probably gonna ground you," Piper admitted. "You need to know to never go in this forest. It's dangerous."

"But mom! My friend!" Katie sobs started up again. "I like playing with her!"

Piper didn't say anything as she got back into the backyard, scooping Maddie up also before going in the house. Once she was sure the door and windows were locked, she set the girls down and grabbed a notebook. "Katie, tell me about this...this friend you keep wanting to see."

"Why?" Katie pouted.

"Because, or you'll never be able to play with her." Piper sat on the kitchen floor by her daughter and crossed her legs. "So tell me what she looks like and how old she is."

Katie's frown turned into a smile. "I'll be able to play with her?!"

"Maybe," Piper sighed. "Just please tell me, Katie. This is really important."

"Her name's Octavia." Katie grabbed one of Piper's pens and doodled on the notebook Piper had brought. "She's a whole year older than me. She lives in the lake with her mommy and daddy and annoying little sister."

Piper's heart stopped momentarily. "In the lake?"

Katie nodded. "And her dog. All their skin is blue." She looked up at Piper and crawled on her lap, bringing her mouth to Piper's ear to whisper. "I think they're Smurfs."

"Smurfs...right." Piper kissed Katie's head. "Go play. Inside. I have to talk to your father."

"Don't tell him!" Katie quickly protested. "I don't want to get in trouble!"

Piper ran a hand through her hair, trying not to let Katie see how much she was shaking. "Fine, okay. Go play. Dinner is almost done."

She could have sworn she heard someone agree with her, but no one was in sight as Katie ran towards the living room.


	6. Chapter 6

Jason and Leo had been busy with the basement all day, trying to fix it up to be used if needed for tornado season or a playroom for the girls. It was dry and not full of any chemicals or mold, but needed touchups here and there. For hours, they focused on putting carpet down.

Jason kept as far away from the walls as possible, but sometimes he would bump into one and feel that unexplained warmness. It seemed to occur in only a certain area and never seemed to fade away.

"Whatcha thinking about?" Leo asked, smirking at his longtime friend. "The last time you zoned out like this was when you lost your vi-"

"Leo, inappropriate." Jason shook his head to clear his thoughts. "I'm just thinking about the house, is all. It's weird."

"Are those ghosts bothering you?" Leo teased, not believing in them himself. None of them had while growing up, never having had an experience to push them to. "Is little Jason afraid of the big, bad, scary ghosts?"

"There are no ghosts, Leo. So shut up." Jason snapped, his exhaustion mixing into his mood. He sat on the hard ground and put his head in his hands, trying to stifle a yawn. "I'm tired. I can't sleep in this place."

Leo was quiet for a minute before he plopped down beside Jason. "Why not? Are you and Piper fighting?"

Jason shook his head. "No, of course not. We're good. It's just... I have trouble sleeping. That's it."

"You've never had trouble sleeping before," Leo argued. "Are you saying you have nightmares? About moving into a new house?"

"No, well, yes, but no." Jason frowned at him. "Don't even say it. I'm not a child, and I can't help it. It feels weird here."

Leo held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. I'll humor you. What feels weird?"

"First off?" Jason gestured to the wall behind him. "The freaking wall is hotter than the freaking sun."

Leo reached back to where Jason was pointing and laid his palm against the wooden wall, his smirk dropping as he felt what Jason had. "Um,..."

"It isn't normal," Jason told him. "It isn't normal at all. Not to mention the freaking feelings I'm getting and the weird things I've been seeing."

"That can be from stress." Leo wrote off. "What I'm worried about is this wall... Do you have a blueprint of the house?"

"Where would I have possibly gotten that?" Jason questioned. "You saw what that realtor was like. She wanted nothing to do with this place."

"Can I try something?" Leo asked, his teasing manner having fallen away from the curiosity forming under his skin. "I'll repair something if I break it."

Jason looked at him for a long time before the curiosity got the better of him. "Fine. Can I help?"

"Yeah, your muscles will be useful." Leo ran to his toolbox and slammed it open. He pulled out a couple hammers, his signature smirk back again. "Which one do you want? The red or blue?"

"Leo, what are you planning?" Jason grabbed the red hammer and looked at the wall. "You're just gonna hammer it down?"

"Yep," Leo popped his lips at the end of the word before stalking over to the wall. "Ready?"

"Piper's going to kill me," Jason looked around the basement as if to make sure his wife wasn't down there. "You'll repair what you break?"

"Yeah, sure." Leo's voice held no indication if that was truthful or not. "Ready? On three."

Despite the childish way, Jason nodded. "One, two,"

"Three!" Leo brought the hammer up and struck the wall, watching as it went through the old wood with no resistance. Instantly, however, the atmosphere changed. It took everything in Jason not to turn around and run upstairs, and looking at Leo, he felt the same way.

"Maybe...maybe we shouldn't have done that." Jason managed. "All we accomplished was putting a hole in the wall."

"That's where you're wrong, Grace." Leo pulled the hammer back and looked into the hole in victory. "Looks to me like you've got a secret room on your hands."

"This isn't time for jokes, Leo." Jason grabbed his hoodie from by the staircase and put it on, his arm hairs rising on end from the sudden coldness. "We shouldn't have done that."

"What, scared it pissed off your ghost?" Leo rolled his eyes. "You can go back upstairs if you want but I want to finish. There's something back there, Jason. What if it's money? You know you need it."

"You are literally the personification of peer pressure." Jason rubbed his temples in exasperation. "You can continue, but I'm going upstairs. Piper's been alone all day and I don't want to be involved in this."

"No way in hell are you leaving me alone." Leo grabbed Jason's arm. "Nope, not a chance. We're doing this together."

Jason looked at him for a minute more, trying to think of an excuse to leave. Everything in him said that this was wrong, that he was going to regret taking that wall down, but he was also curious about why it was even up in the first place. What was it hiding?

"Fine, let's continue." he finally decided, grabbing his discarded hammer. "But I'm blaming you if something goes wrong."

Leo didn't answer, already having brought his hammer up to the wall again.

~~~~~~~~~~

Nico was pissed, to say the least. He wanted to strangle the two idiots before him but knew it wouldn't do them any good. He needed the house to stay up, so he needed someone to live there for him. He just wished it hadn't been someone so curious.

Leo seemed to be the leading cause of Jason's annoying lack of respect for those that had lived there before. If a wall had been put up, it had been put up for a reason. If something was covered, it was best to remain from human eyes. There was a reason things happened. There was always a reason.

As they got that wall down, Nico's temper got the best of him and he disappeared from the room, unable to watch them find his lost memories.

~~~~~~~~~

"Do you remember how to play hide and clap?" Piper asked her daughter, needing to get their minds off of Octavia while she waited for Jason to come up from the basement. "We can play while we wait for dinner to get done."

"Yes! Yes!" Katie squealed with delight as she ran to her mother. "I'll hide, okay? You look for me."

"Just don't go in your room. Maddie's sleeping." Piper instructed. "Okay?"

"Okay," Katie smiled at there barely being any rules. "Can we start now?"

"Yeah, yeah." Piper moved a hand over her eyes. "Go hide now, Katie."

She heard the small girl sprint up the closest flight of stairs, sighing when she knew how there was so much area Katie could hide in. She should have put a limit on the third floor but hadn't thought of it before. Getting used to having a house you could get lost in seemed harder than you would think.

Piper took the hand off her eyes and slowly went upstairs. "First clap!"

Of course, it had to come from the third floor. Sighing, Piper headed for the next flight of stairs and headed up hesitantly. Once she was on the third floor, she walked a little bit before looking around. "Second clap, Katie!"

What sounded like a clap came from behind a large tapestry that clung to the wall along with a thick layer of dust. Frowning in confusion, Piper put a hand to it. "Katie...?" Instead of touching a wall, her hand kept moving back with the tapestry.

"Seriously, Katie? You hid behind this thing?" Piper smiled to herself as she busied herself with taking it down. "How did you possibly think I could do this with my eyes closed?" Once it was down, she found herself facing a short hallway with a single door at the far end.

"Got you," she crept up to the door and opened it slowly, wincing at the eerie noise it made. Fumbling around for a light switch, Piper entered the room in the dark. Once she got the light on, she looked behind her to find that the door had closed quietly.

"Katie..." Piper's heart sunk as she looked around the bedroom. It looked to have been a teenager's, with a twin poster bed and clothes laying around as if they had never gotten to be put away. A tie was lying closest to her feet and a pair of boxers laid by the bathroom, both articles of clothing covered with as much dust that clung to the walls.

"Katie, third clap." Piper managed, her hands clasped together in front of her. "Do your third clap, Katie."

The clap came from a door to the far wall, which had been cracked open ever so slightly. A light shone from the inside, where no doubt her daughter was hiding.

"I found you, Katie." Piper jogged to the door and opened it wide enough to step through, smirking in triumph as she walked into the old bathroom. "I won, Kati-... Oh...oh god..."

Katie wasn't in there, even if the clap had come from in there. Piper made sure to look in the cupboards and anywhere else the small child could have hidden. When she looked in the bathtub, she got so sick that she thought she might puke then and there. It was filled to the brim with dried blood, coating it to the point that no previous color could be seen.

There was nobody in the room she heard the clap from. Nobody around. When she finally screamed for Katie that she had lost the game, she found her daughter hiding outside by the swing set.


	7. Chapter 7

They had gotten the last piece off of the wall when Piper's scream was heard from above them. Instantly, Jason ran upstairs to meet her, Leo right behind him. When they got to the kitchen, they found Piper sitting by the counter with a laptop. Her hands shook and her eyes were wide with fright, a couple tears having fallen.

"Piper?" Jason ran over and kneeled beside her, his voice full of worry. "What is it? What happened? Where are the kids?"

"Living room...they're playing...in the living room." Piper managed, closing the laptop. She watched Leo leave to check the kids before looking to Jason, looking truly terrified for the first time. "Jason..."

"Just tell me what it is. We'll fix it." Jason promised, hugging her close to him. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Piper buried her head in his chest for a minute, feeling his heartbeat against her forehead. It grounded her, calming her heart rate and breathing. After a couple minutes she looked up to face Jason, her eyes watering again. "I'm scared."

"Why are you scared?" Jason asked. "What happened? You were just cooking dinner... Did you burn yourself?"

Piper shook her head. "It's...kind of a long story...and you might think I'm insane."

"I wouldn't think you're insane," Jason assured her. "Just tell me so I know what's going on."

Piper nodded slightly, wiping at her eyes fruitlessly. "The kids were playing outside. I looked away for a minute and...and Katie wasn't there. I found her in the woods. When I brought her in she explained to me that she had a friend that lived out there."

"Probably an imaginary friend." Jason offered. "That's not rare."

"She said her name was Octavia and that she was blue, Jason. That she lived in the lake with her family and her dog." Piper opened the laptop again and turned it so Jason could see the screen. "I researched. Read...read that, Jason."

Jason took the laptop hesitantly, his heart filling with dread when he read the heading of the old news article. FAMILY DROWNS, MANOR HAUNTED? Underneath, their new address was written.

"Read the whole thing." Piper reminded him. "It's all important."

"What? Is it going to tell me a girl named Octavia died here?" Jason grumbled, scanning his eyes over it again.

"Well,...yeah, it is," Piper replied, her voice small. "Apparently there's a lake in the woods. She and her sister went to swim. They didn't know the bottom was like this quicksand. Her parents tried to save them...they all drowned out there."

Jason read to make sure Piper had read everything right, and she had. The newspaper went into detail about these people and their lives. They had gotten the house for cheap and lived well in it. The parents, Percy and Annabeth, were ordinary Americans. Percy was a lifeguard and Annabeth was an architect. The news of their deaths had shocked the whole town and traveled far, but Jason had never heard of them now twenty years later. How had something so horrible become so forgotten?

"Are you sure Katie hadn't read this?" Jason asked. "I mean, if she had, it'd be easy for her to imagine it once it was in her brain."

"I just got the laptop out of a taped box. Our phones have been on us. She didn't read it anywhere, Jason." Piper took the laptop back and stared mournfully at the picture the newspaper had of the dead family. "She wouldn't have known..."

The couple fell into uneasy silence, both thinking their own thoughts about what exactly was happening there. Neither wanted to admit the possibility of the paranormal, but no other explanation came to mind. What could've happened? It would be too large of a coincidence to be believable, and yet Jason still tried to write it off as one. Ghosts weren't real...right?

"Pipes...let's calm down for right now, see if everything calms down. It could just be a coincidence...we don't know. I'll build a fence out back that Katie can't get passed and it'll all be okay." Jason kissed his wife's forehead. "Okay?"

Piper didn't seem to fully agree with him but nodded, her thoughts running with ways she could get rid of Katie's "friend". "Okay..."

Jason got up, helping Piper to her feet. "Is dinner done?"

Piper nodded, letting Jason wipe her tears. "Is Leo eating?"

Jason nodded, letting her go. "You okay? The girls will get upset if you're upset."

"I'm okay," Piper assured him, putting her phone on selfie mode to check her face. "S-See? Barely looks like I cried."

"Take a minute if you need one." Jason started to get plates down from the cupboard. "I'll set the table."

Piper watched him silently, her hand still gripping onto her phone. There was one person she knew that'd help them, but Jason wouldn't like her calling her at all. But if he didn't know...

~~~~~~~~~~

Nico put the wooden boards over the hidden room that night, not caring what Jason would think when he saw them the next morning. All he needed was to keep it hidden, to keep it out of the way...

That day hadn't been horrible, however, even if Nico wasn't feeling the greatest at the moment. It was nice to hear about Octavia and her family, nice to know that they were all together still. It was nice to know that they hadn't been forgotten by the living like he had.

Once the boards had been put back up Nico exited the basement quickly, not wanting to be down there longer than he had to. It was too close to things he'd rather forget. Instead of going to his room like usual, he went to the room where Jason's daughters slept. They were both sound asleep, the nightlight illuminating their childlike features. They were innocent, and Nico swore to make sure it stayed that way. Nico liked kids and hated to see them go through what he did. If there was any reason he was still on this earth it was to help those that he could.

Maddie's soft crying led Nico to her crib quickly, his arms gently picking the girl up. Pacing the room, he sang to her under his breath and rocked her in his arms, just as he had seen his mother do so long ago. Maddie quickly calmed and eventually fell back asleep with her head against his chest, but he kept singing to her for a while longer.

He never realized that Piper would hear all of this over the baby monitor.


	8. Chapter 8

The next morning, Jason started work again and Piper was left alone in the early hours of the morning. As soon as she was sure her husband was gone, she got her phone and looked up the closest church. There was one about thirty minutes away towards the city, close enough to go and get back before Jason would be home.

Leo agreed to babysit the girls when Piper explained she had to go to the store. She didn't want to scare him or him to think she was insane, so she lied easily and set a reminder on her phone to actually go to the store when she was done. Once Leo was there and the girls were fine, she left quickly and started driving. She took Leo's truck, relaxing at the air conditioning that her and Jason's car didn't have. It was a hot summer with humid days and sticky nights, with fireflies and crickets. Fireworks were heard now and again as July approached and schools were out. She loved summer more than anything, but not having air conditioning at the house was a real struggle.

Piper pulled up to the small church with her heart hammering in her chest. How long had it been since she had been to mass? She and Jason used to take the girls there for holidays, but even that became too much in their busy lives.

She went inside quietly to not disturb anyone in prayer, looking around the dimly lit room. A couple of people were in the pews with their hands folded and their heads bowed, but mass wasn't going on. The priest was sitting by one of them with his hand on the man's back, talking in low whispers.

Piper sat in the pew behind them and set her purse next to her, not knowing how long the conversation would be but not wanting to rush it. She may be worried about her family, but she was still half convinced that she was insane. She wasn't going to risk interrupting real troubles for her fear of a nonexistent ghost.

She was half asleep when the priest sat beside her, his old face wrinkled and tired, but a genuine smile shone through the old age. "I'm sorry that took so long. That man just lost his wife and daughter in a car accident. The funeral will be tomorrow, and he wanted me to minister it."

Piper immediately knew she had made the right choice with not interrupting. "It's okay, father. I just had a quick question, if that's okay with you."

He nodded at her to go on.

Piper took a deep breath, picking at her fingernails to distract herself. "I just moved into a new house. Please...please don't think I'm insane, father. But my daughter came to me describing her imaginary friend. I looked up the house... Something's there, father. I heard it walking over the baby monitor and it moves things and... I'm scared for my family, father."

The old man's smile faded. "Ma'am... Are you sure your daughter hadn't seen this bit of news before?"

Piper shook her head. "She couldn't have. It's impossible. And I know what I heard, father. There are blood stains and old furniture and the walking and clapping...the basement." She whispered the last part to herself, having found the boards Jason took down back up.

"You know, you remind me of a young woman that came to me some twenty years ago," he mused, his hand rubbing under his small glasses. "She came to me, saying she heard things in the house. Her daughters would be playing with someone that wasn't there and they found bloodstains hidden around. I worked to do research for them, to figure out if what they were dealing with was real and dangerous."

"What happened?" Piper asked quietly. "Did you find anything?"

"Oh, I found something." he let out a small sigh, guilt washing over his features. "I rushed to their house to find it empty. Not a soul in sight. I called the police and they searched━we all searched━for days. Their bodies were eventually found in the lake out in the woods. Nobody knows how they got there."

Utter fear washed over Piper, the kind that seemed to stop your heart and stop your voice from working. She couldn't breathe, couldn't talk, couldn't do anything but stare at this man and think about what this meant for her family. Her babies.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his eyes narrowing. "What? What is it?"

Bringing a shaking hand to her face, Piper pinched her cheek a little to try and bring herself back into a talking state. It didn't work.

"Do you know who I'm talking about? The Jackson's?" he asked.

Piper mutely nodded.

A silent glance around them, a spark of fear in his holy eyes. "Do you...do you live in their house?"

Piper nodded again.

"Take me there. Take me there immediately." he stood up and helped her to her feet. "We don't have much time."

Piper looked into his eyes, and as fear took over, had a horrible feeling that she wasn't doing something right.

~~~~~~~~~~

Leo got Maddie in her highchair after ten minutes and then had to work on Katie being seated. By the time he did, Maddie was once again on the floor trying to crawl away. Piper never mentioned she could crawl out of it, but it made Leo's life ten times harder. Little kids just weren't his thing.

"I want to play!" Katie protested, throwing her fork across the kitchen. "Not eat!"

Leo narrowly missed being impaled, his face starting to pale. "Katie, come on-" He looked over to find Maddie out of her highchair again, his face turning red. "How do you keep doing that?!"

Katie's laughter echoed throughout the kitchen, her hair falling into the syrup on her pancakes (specially made by Chief Leo, thank you very much). "It's Nico! He likes making you mad!"

Leo shook his head. "It isn't the time for games, Katie. She could get hurt climbing down from there." He brought Maddie's chocolate milk to the table and lifted her back into her highchair, buckling her into it. "There, that should do it."

"I'm telling the truth!" Katie argued, grabbing Maddie's fork and holding it close. "He does it to make you mad."

"There's no one here except for me, you, and your sister," Leo replied. "Now, please eat your breakfast before your mom kills me. We can play afterward."

"I'm not lying!" her eyes filled with sudden tears. "I promise I'm not lying!"

"Woah, Woah, no crying." Leo held his hands up in surrender. "I'm sorry, don't cry. Crying kids aren't ever a good thing."

"You're making Nico sad and that makes me sad," she mumbled, staring at her pancakes mournfully.

Leo tried to ignore the melancholy atmosphere, knowing very well that it was just his nerves getting to him. "Katie, I'm sorry. Who's Nico? You're imaginary-, not imaginary. Sorry, Katie. Is he your friend?"

She nodded. "He lives here with us. He's friends with Octavia outside. But he can't go outside and see her."

"'K," Leo gestured to her pancakes. "Eat, Katie."

She started to eat reluctantly. "Mom's are better."

Leo put a hand to his chest, gasping. "Katie! I put my heart and soul into that!"

Giggling, she pointed the fork at him. "Sorry, Chief Leo."

He grunted. "Apology accepted."

"Chief Leo?"

"Yeah?" he sat back in the chair. "What's up?"

She used her fork to point again. "Maddie got down again."

Leo turned around quickly, groaning loudly when he saw the little girl sitting on the ground, playing with a small ball. "Pipes, where are you?"


	9. Chapter 9

Piper unlocked the front door with an unsettled heart and the feeling that she was going against her gut instincts. The priest was right behind her, a bottle of holy water in one hand and a Bible in the other. She felt wrong taking those things in the house but couldn't turn back now. If what she was doing would help her kids, then she would continue to do it. No matter what.

She ran to the dining room where she heard Leo and the kids, unable to wipe the fear off her face. "Leo, take the kids in the backyard for a couple minutes. Please."

Leo looked up at her, shaking his head. He was covered in food and had a cut on his cheek, his hair dripping syrup. "Where have you been? I can barely watch them in here. You think they'll be safe outside with me? You're insane!"

"Leo!" Piper grabbed onto his shoulders and shook him. "Leo! Do this for me. I need you to do this for me. Please. Please, Leo."

Leo frowned when he heard the priest begin to pray from the parlor. "What's that?"

"A priest," Piper admitted. She then gestured to the kids, refusing to say more in front of them. "Get them outside, now. Please."

Leo gave her a look, no doubt he thought she was insane, but took the kids in the backyard with him. As soon as they were outside she ran back to the parlor, frowning when she saw the priest leaving the house hurriedly. By the time she had the sense to go after him, he was already driving away.

~~~~~~~~~~~

As soon as the priest had entered the house Nico had known. He couldn't explain it well to himself, but it was if the whole house was his web. As soon as something started shaking...he was there.

Nico appeared behind the old priest as he carried out a prayer, his fingers twitching and his neck bleeding more than it usually did. He wanted this man out of his house. He couldn't explain why he felt so strongly or why it needed to happen immediately, but getting this man out took over Nico's mind.

The crickets chirped from outside, the fireflies started to catch flight. It was sticky in the house as if the wood itself was sweating. As Nico felt his soul spread through the wood and around the room the priest stood in, the heat became unbearable. Steam rose up from the floor and the chandelier creaked from the strain. As the holy water hit the wood, it rose as smoke.

"Stupid man," Nico glared at the paling priest. "I'm not a demon. If I was, that water would have looked like acid when it fell. It didn't, you idiot."

The priest didn't seem to hear him as he drew from his pocket an expensive rosary, his swollen knuckles wrapped around the beads as he started to rattle off the prayers. It made Nico sick to think that a man of love could be so careless with who he was exorcising. Nico wasn't a demon, nor was he a threat to Piper's family. He just wanted them to understand his boundaries.

Nico stepped in front of the priest and put a hand on his shoulder, watching as the old man suppressed a shiver. "Get. Out."

His words echoed around the room, seeping out of the walls and vibrating throughout the floor. The priest, his eyes wide with shock, heard these words and did exactly what any sane person would do.

He ran out so fast Nico could barely keep track of him with his eyes.

"Father!" Piper ran into the room and stopped at the front door, her face filling with misery as she watched the priest speed away. "Father! Please!"

The chandelier stopped squeaking, the sleek walls stopped sweating, fear stopped coming out of the woodwork. In a matter of moments, the priest was gone and Nico was utterly exhausted. How long had it been since he did something that big? The last he could remember was when his father died. Even then, he was a young ghost and didn't have a lot of energy yet. After his father's death, Nico was stuck in bed for weeks.

"Piper, don't worry," Nico managed, climbing up the steps mournfully. "He freaked out over nothing." His eyes slumped and his vision blurred, and he couldn't have gotten to his room any earlier.

Piper heard his words, however, and heard his footsteps going upstairs. She followed the noises until she stopped in front of the doorway to his room, remembering very well what had happened in there, what the bath was full of. Her memory was something that would never leave her.


	10. Chapter 10

That night, Jason slept heavily after a long day back at work. His light breathing was the only thing that assured Piper that he was still alive, his chest slowly rising and falling. He had a peaceful night for the first time at that house.

Leo had left after Piper had made him promise not to tell Jason about what had happened. It took some begging and some threatening, but the younger man gave in and left hurriedly. She hadn't heard from him since.

Piper quietly crawled out of bed around midnight and tiptoed out of the room, Jason not stirring. Once she got the door to their bedroom closed behind her, she let herself sigh in relief and made her way downstairs. The steps creaking under her feet made the only noise and the parlor below her was as dark as if it was stuck in the time before electric lighting. A candle cast a soft glow over the wood, a candle she didn't remember lighting. She would never have left it lit while they went to sleep.

Piper blew the candle out softly, plunging herself into darkness. The moon shining in from the windows allowed her eyes to adjust relatively soon, but it was still too dark to see much. Piper felt her way to the living room as her feet padded against the floor, trying not to wake anyone in her family up. The girls awake at midnight would mean hell tomorrow.

Her breath caught in her throat when she looked up into the dark living room. The large windows cast moonlight into the room to be reflected off of the picture frames and the metal in the fireplace. Crickets chirped, heat built up, a dog barked somewhere in the distance. Standing in front of the fireplace, behind the coffee table and couches, was the silhouette of a young man. She could make out the hair that hung in front of his face, the way one hand was rested on the mantel, the clothes that hung off his skinny frame. He looked as real as Jason, but she knew he would have had no way into the house. They had locked everything up good and no windows were broken.

"Piper...don't be afraid." his voice was soft, broken, and aged. "I'm not going to hurt you or your family."

Piper reached over and grabbed the nearest thing to her: a wine bottle behind the bar. "Who are you? What are you doing in here? This is my house, you hear? Me and my husband bought it. I know it's been abandoned for awhile, but now it's ours. You need to get out and get your own house."

The young man laughed, something he didn't seem to do often. "I wish."

"What do you mean?"

He stepped forward, his feet never making a noise. "Can you see me?"

"I'm sorry, what-"

"Turn the light on, Piper."

With no hesitation she flicked the switch up, illuminating the room at the expense of their electric bill. She wanted to see this boy, wanted to know who was in her house and his reason for doing so. He didn't sound dangerous, but trusting was never her strong suit.

The light revealed the boy in front of her, it revealed more of him than she expected. He looked to be only a teenager with dark hair and a face as white as snow. He wore a suit of old material and style, all black. His neck, however, was the first thing that put her off. A deep indentation spun its way around the base of his neck and heightened in the back, deep purple against his skin. Blood dripped down the front of his clothes in a steady rhythm, and some more dripped out of his sleeves.

"What...what..." Piper couldn't form a complete thought as she looked the boy over, motherly instincts kicking in. She wanted to help him, take him to a hospital or at least stop the bleeding, but she didn't know if she could, if she should.

"My name is Nico," he announced. "This may be your house, but it's also mine. Keep that in mind, Piper. See you around."

As soon as he was finished speaking he was gone, the room empty besides Piper. She stared at the spot where he had stood, her eyes wide and her heart racing. She had never believed in ghosts, never believed in the supernatural... But whatever...that...was... It wasn't anything normal.

Piper ran over and looked at the floor, frowning when she saw no blood left behind. When he was there plenty had fallen off him, but the floor was as clean as it had been when they moved in.

"Nico?" she looked around with no answer. "Nico, can we talk?"

The room remained empty. After a couple of moments, she heard movement above her and Jason's tired voice calling down for her. "Piper?"

"Jason," she turned around to find him walking into the living room, his hair a mess and his pants hastily thrown on.

"What are you doing down here by yourself? I heard you talking..."

"I was on the phone with my mother." Piper lied, walking over to him with her arms wrapped around herself. "She had a bat in her house and completely freaked out."

"Is she okay?" Jason asked, his voice low. He knew her phone was still on her nightstand where she had left it for the night.

"Yeah, one of my brothers is going to go help her." Piper kissed his cheek. "Let's go lay back down. It's been a long day."

Jason wrapped an arm around her shoulders and walked her back upstairs, his eyes looking around wearily. Who exactly was this Nico she was talking to, and how had he gotten in? "Yeah, let's go lay down..."


	11. Chapter 11

The next night, Piper woke at midnight from a sudden chill. She looked down to find the blanket off her and only around Jason, her small nightgown not doing much to keep her warm. She went to pull the blanket back over her when she heard walking downstairs, coming from the living room where she had spoken to Nico the night before.

Scrambling to her feet, Piper exited the room as quickly as she could without causing a disturbance. As soon as she was out she tiptoed down the stairs two at a time, her bare feet hitting the wood with barely a noise. She was getting good at sneaking around, whether that was good or bad.

"Nico?" Piper called softly, walking into the living room. She jumped slightly when she saw the boy sitting on the couch, even though she knew he would be there. His hair hung in his face and his suit hung off his frame, the constant dripping of blood the only sound he made.

Piper entered the room quietly, the light from the fireplace lighting up the room enough to see. Even though the temperature reached a hundred outside, the air around Nico seemed as cool as if it were winter.

"Can...can we talk?" Piper pulled a blanket around herself and sat across from Nico on the other couch, the coffee table between them and the fireplace to her right, his left.

Nico looked up at her before cracking a smile. "Why else would I have woken you up?"

Piper let out a soft sigh in relief, trying not to shiver too much. "So I'm not bothering you?"

He shook his head. "Nope. It's hard to bother me lately. Yet your husband seems to accomplish it, I admit."

"Jason is...he doesn't realize you're here." she defended weakly. "He doesn't believe in...in..."

"Ghosts," Nico finished for her. "I realize that, and I know what I am. You don't have to beat around the bush."

"Right, sorry." Piper felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. "So...so...You're Nico..."

Nico raised an eyebrow. "We've established that."

"I'm sorry," Piper put her head in her hands. "I'm just so..." Letting out a soft groan, she looked back up at him. "I've never believed in ghosts before. And now...seeing you...my mind is screaming at me that I'm insane...but after Katie seeing that girl in the woods and the priest running out..."

"It's okay to believe." Nico replied easily. "I mean, I believe in ghosts."

Piper couldn't help but laugh. "Of course you do, Nico."

"See? It's not so hard. You're talking to a ghost, perfectly normal." Nico brought his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them. His voice got quieter, more serious. "I mean...it makes me happy to have someone to talk to...your kids are great but its nice to finally have a mature conversation."

"You talk to my kids?" Piper squeaked.

Nico nodded as if this was common. "They're great kids, adorable. But Katie keeps asking me why my neck is bleeding and why she can't tell you guys about me."

Piper swallowed thickly. "Oh,"

A light beeping noise came from the kitchen, causing Nico's head to perk up. "Oh, the coffee's done."

"You made coffee?" Piper asked, the fear draining out of her. She couldn't help but smile at this boy as if he was just another one of her kids. "It's midnight."

"I was thirsty." he got up and reached a hand out to her. "And late night talks always go by better with coffee. You should know this by now, Piper."

Piper took his hand before following him into the kitchen, not even thinking about how Jason could have heard. "So...so we can talk... I can ask questions?"

Nico sat on the island, swinging his feet as Katie did. "Yeah, I guess."

Piper got two coffee cups down before filling them up. "First. You can drink coffee?"

Nico smirked. "I don't know. I've never tried. Next question?"

Piper handed him a cup before pouring creamer into her own. "You're...you're...not alive...may I ask...when you lived?"

Nico looked down into the coffee cup, swirling the dark substance around. "When the house was built. My father was the one to build it. We moved here from Italy and he built it for my mother, to ease the pain of leaving our country."

"Oh," Piper leaned against the cupboard and sipped from her cup. She frowned at how hot it was still before looking back up to Nico. "What do you want me to know? You wanted to talk to me if you woke me up and showed yourself...so what do you want me to know? How do you want this to work with us living here?"

Nico sipped from his coffee, smirking successfully after doing so. "I'm fine with you living here. It keeps the house from being torn down. If that happened...I honestly don't know what would happen to me."

"Can you leave the house?"

Nico shook his head. "Can't even poke my head out of the window. It's a pain in the ass, I'll tell you."

"I can only imagine..." Piper watched him sadly. "I'm guessing you died in the house, that's why you're stuck here?"

Nico nodded. "I don't quite understand it, though. I wasn't the only one to die in here, but I'm the only one here. It's more like a form of Hell, I guess. This is my Hell."

"I doubt you deserved to go to Hell." Piper rejected. "It's probably just got something to do with how you died, if it was sudden or not, or something like that."

"You seem to know a lot for a sceptic." Nico commented.

"Jason's mother is a...I don't know what to call it." Piper explained. "He doesn't talk to her anymore but I was dating him when he still lived with her."

"A medium?" Nico asked slowly.

"No...maybe...I don't know. She's obsessed with ghosts." Piper set her coffee down and closed her eyes. "Nico...do you want Jason to believe in you? Do you want him to know you're here?"

"Not yet," Nico got off the island and cracked his neck. "I've got to work him into it. Give me a month."

Piper laughed softly. "Okay, okay. I'll let you 'work him into it'."

"I...do need to put some limits out." Nico admitted quietly. "Like that room in the basement. It was boarded up for a reason. And then my room and the attic."

"There's an attic?" Piper opened her eyes.

"That you and Jason won't go into." Nico ordered. "Can you do that for me?"

She nodded. "I guess so..."

"Good," Nico looked up at the ceiling before frowning. "Your husband woke up. Ciao." He disappeared from sight, the steaming coffee mug the only evidence that he was there. Again, the blood seemed to have disappeared along with him.

"Piper?" Jason walked into the kitchen, a frown evident on his face. He saw the two cups, saw Piper in a conversation-like stance, saw the panic on her face. "What's going on here?"

"I...I don't know what you're talking about..." she lied weakly, setting her cup into the sink. "I was just coming upstairs."

"Who were you talking to?" he asked, crossing his arms over his bare chest. "This is two nights in a row, now."

"I wasn't talking to anyone." Piper argued, moving towards the stairs. "It's late. We should be in bed. You have work tomorrow."

"Where is he hiding?" Jason grabbed her arm lightly. "That cup of coffee is still warm and I didn't hear a door. So where is he?"

"I don't know who you're talking about." Piper retorted. "Now please, let's go to bed."

"Who. Were. You. Talking. To?"

"Jason! It isn't any of your business!" Piper yanked her arm away from him and walked out of the room, tears starting to threaten her eyes. "We need to go to bed before the girls wake up."

Jason shook his head at his wife's retreating form before going over to the cup of coffee Nico had been sipping on, staring at it for a minute before throwing it against the wall. It shattered on impact, glass shards spreading across the kitchen floor. Jason knew how Piper drank her coffee. She never would have drunk it black like what was in that cup.


	12. Chapter 12

Jason woke up the next morning and called in sick without waking Piper. He went down, made coffee, and waited. He heard her wake up sometime later when he would usually be long gone to work. She came down soon after, entering the kitchen with her robe wrapped tightly around her. "Nico, what is your deal with-..."

"So his name is Nico," Jason greeted, frowning at her. "Want to tell me about who you're cheating with?"

"Jason..." Piper walked more into the room. "I am not cheating."

"Than who's Nico?" Jason shot back. "Where's he hiding? Because I swear, Piper, you've been talking to him too much. And the way you ran down here so excited to see him..."

"I didn't 'run down here'." Piper defended. "I walked. I smelled coffee and you shouldn't have been here."

"That would mean Nico brewed it?"

"Well yes, I mean no, I mean..."

Jason sighed heavily before turning to the sink, hitting the edge in anger. "I can't believe you, Piper. I can't believe you!"

"I'm not cheating!" Piper yelled back, her fists clenched at her sides. "I'm not cheating, Jason! How many times do I have to tell you?!"

"Then who's Nico? Why are you sneaking him around here?" Jason questioned, refusing to look at her. He kept his eyes on the sink, staring at the coffee cup still sitting in it from the night before. "Who is he, Piper?"

Piper stood there for a minute in silence, a tear making its way down her cheek. "Jason..."

"Tell me, Piper."

"I...I can't..."

~~~

Nico sat against the wall with Katie and Maddie on his lap, holding both little girls close as their parents fought downstairs. He wanted to go and help, provide emotional support for Piper, but all he could do was comfort those little girls that heard their parents fight for the first time. They clung to him as if he was their lifeline, not letting him go for even a second.

~~~

Jason looked over at Piper with a look of anguish. "Just tell me, Piper. Just tell me who it is. I want to know."

"Jason. Listen to me. If I explain, you'll think I'm crazy. That's why you think I'm cheating. You're too dense to see what's really happening here." Piper groaned. "Just believe me! I'm your wife!"

"And I'm your husband!" Jason gestured to where he had thrown the coffee cup. "Who was drinking out of that? Answer me that."

"...Nico..."

"And what was Nico doing while drinking out of that?" Jason questioned.

"We were talking." Piper insisted. "That's it. Only talking."

"Okay. We've agreed on the fact that Nico was here," Jason turned to face her, frowning at her tears. "Just tell me...who is Nico? Where does he live? Where did you guys meet? I didn't notice at the apartment. Is it new? Is it a fling? I know I work a lot, I know, and all the stress about moving. But I'm still always here for you, Piper. Say the word and I'll be there. You don't need this Nico who sneaks around and knows he's breaking up your family."

"Jason,..." Piper stepped forward and moved a hand to his cheek. "If...if I explain...will you keep an open mind? You know me, you know I would never make something like this up."

"...alright..."

"We should go sit down, it's a lot." she invited. "Let's go sit down, Jason."

"Alright."


	13. Chapter 13

Piper explained everything that had happened, everything Nico had told her, everything she had seen. Nico didn't show up and nothing else made a sound except for the candles flickering from the drafts and the wind outside as the clouds came in. A storm was coming, electrifying the air and heightening the tension.

Jason stared at her with an unreadable expression, his arms crossed as he sat back in his chair. The light illuminated his hair and brought out his eyes, but a dark shadow cast over his face in the shape of his glasses. He looked tired, sick, weary, and like he didn't know what to think of Piper's story. Finally, after what felt like forever, he sat forward with a frustrated sigh. "Fine,"

"Fine?" The winds sped up, slamming against the glass windows.

"Fine, if you're telling the truth, we can just look this Nico up." Jason pulled his phone out and typed in their address. "Do you know his last name?"

Piper shook her head. "His family was the one that built the house, he said. I don't know what year that was but hopefully, that's helpful..."

Jason glanced up at her. "You really believe this, Piper? You aren't just stressed or something?"

Piper rested her head on her hand. "Jason, please..."

"I'm just asking." he looked back down at the phone as the power went out, his phone screen lighting up the near darkness. "Damn. Will you get the candles while I read this article?"

Piper stood from the couch, getting her own phone out to use as a flashlight. "Did you find something?"

Jason nodded. "Get the candles and let me read."

~~~~~~~

Nico looked up when the lights went out, frowning at the sudden change of the atmosphere outside. The storm rolled in, vengeful and powerful, with little to no pity for those in its path. The trees in the forest danced together, their leaves flying in all directions. The sun refused to shine, the birds went into hiding. Nothing stirred outside but what the wind blew around.

Maddie was thankfully asleep by then, but Katie looked up with wide eyes. "The lights went out!"

Nico nodded. "It's gonna storm."

She looked around before running to the window, watching the forest with a sort of gleam in her eyes. "That looks so cool."

"I know," he picked her up gently. "But it's not safe to be by the windows, now. Lightning might come and get you."

He carried the girls out of the room, climbing the next staircase. "Let's go to my room, there's no windows."

~~~~~~~~

Piper dumped the candles onto the coffee table before lighting them one by one, the fire lighting her pale face up. The room grew hotter and the air turned musty, but they had no choice. It became as dark as night outside.

"What did you find?" Piper asked, her voice small. "You've been quiet."

Jason looked up from his phone, his face pale in the dim light. "Come here for a second."

Piper looked up at him for a minute before getting up, sitting beside him in the armchair. She cuddled into his side, glancing towards the windows wearily. "What's up?"

"I found the history of the house," Jason began. "That...that the family that built it was the di Angelo's. The son's name was Nico."

Piper's body tingled eerily at the thought that that boy she had talked to was actually in history, that he had lived and died hundreds of years before. "Oh..."

Jason turned the screen of his phone off with the push of a button before looking to face his wife. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. "I'm sorry for doubting you."

Piper closed her eyes, relaxing against his chest. "You believe me, now?"

Jason nodded. "But I want to...I need to see this for myself. Ghosts...I don't like believing in them."

"I know. I don't, either." Piper agreed. "It's sad to think they're stuck here in a purgatory thing, reliving their lives..."

Jason kissed the top of her head. "Does Nico show up a lot?"

Piper nodded. "But I don't think he's fully comfortable yet. He showed himself to me only twice. But apparently, he talks to the girls a lot."

"The girls..." Jason sighed, getting up. "They're alone in the dark. Let's go see if they're awake." He held a hand out to her, smiling. "Come on, Pipes."

She took his hand and pulled herself to her feet, grabbing a candle off of the coffee table. "Do you think the weather will be too bad?"

He shook his head as he led her upstairs. "Be careful of your steps. You drop that candle and all this wood will go up in an instant."

"Way to calm me down." Piper joked. "I'm not going to drop it."

Jason smiled at her, getting to the girls' room. He frowned when he looked into their beds to find them gone. "Piper..."

"They might be with Nico," she suggested softly. "Don't...don't freak out yet."

"You're the one that looks green," he took the candle from her. "Where would Nico have taken them?"

"His...his room...?"

"Where's that?"

Piper grabbed his hand, pulling him down the hall. "Come on, hurry up. If they're not there..."

"Calm down, calm down. They didn't go outside, we would have heard." Jason assured her. They climbed the steps to the third floor, Piper immediately pulling him again.

She got to Nico's room, hesitating at the closed door before knocking. "N-Nico? Are you and the girls in there?"

"Mommy!" Katie ran to the door and opened it, causing both her parents to let out a breath of relief. "It got dark out!"

"I know, baby." Piper kneeled beside her and hugged her close. "You scared me. I couldn't find you."

"Sorry, Nico took us here cause he said the windows are dangerous," she explained. "Something about lightning."

Piper nodded. "Nico was being smart." She looked past Katie and into the room, frowning when she didn't see the boy in question. "Where is he, Katie?"

Katie turned around, frowning. "He was here... Maybe he's scared of daddy."

Jason sighed heavily, walking into the room to get Maddie. "Let's just go downstairs and check the news. See if-"

As he was speaking the tornado siren went off, cutting through the air as it warned all those in the path of the storm to take shelter. Even as common as tornadoes were, it filled the land with an eerie sound that sent Piper on edge. She hated tornadoes, hated anything to do with them.

Silently, she ushered her kids to the basement, hoping the house would be stable enough to last the storm.


	14. Chapter 14

Piper sat in the corner of the basement with her girls on her lap, Jason wrapping a blanket around them. They had a couple cereal boxes and water bottles at their feet, but nothing else to keep them occupied as the thunder rolled out. Jason kept an eye on his phone, waiting for the tornado warning to lift.

"Piper..." Jason suddenly looked up at her, having been lighting another candle.

"Yeah?" she looked over at him, currently trying to calm a terrified Maddie. "What's wrong?"

He gestured to the wall Nico had put back up. "Did you do that?"

She shook her head. "I've been too busy with the girls."

"Then who did?" he accused, before realizing what it meant. "The...the ghost did? That's...that's impossible...ghosts can't...touch things..."

"He could pick up a coffee cup," Piper contradicted. "And drink from it, and pick up Maddie, and scare Leo to death. I'm sure he could have put a wall back up."

"He-...scare Leo?" Jason questioned. "Am I missing something?"

Katie burst out laughing at the memory. "That was funny!"

Piper smiled at her, laughing a little herself. "It was, wasn't it? Leo looked like he was going to wet his pants."

Jason started to smile at the thought. "What'd he do, show himself?"

Piper shook her head. "Katie, how about you tell daddy what happened?"

Katie ran to Jason and jumped on his lap. "Every time Leo went to get something, he'd get Maddie out of her eating chair and put her on the ground. He thought she was climbing out."

"Is that so?" Jason ruffled her hair. "Sounds like fun."

"It was!" she agreed. "Nico's fun!"

"Okay, but he still shouldn't have put that wall back up," Jason argued, looking back to Piper. "It's my basement now and I want it down."

"There's a reason he wants it up." Piper tried. "There's obviously a reason."

"Then he can come to me about it." Jason crossed his arms. "Until then it's coming right down-"

"Okay, I came to you about it." Nico's sarcastic voice rang out. He stood behind Jason, leaning against the wall they currently fought over. "Now can you shut up about it?"

Jason snapped his head up to face Nico, his face paling. He looked him over once, saw his neck, looked to Piper, and walked upstairs. Nico watched with a slightly amused smirk, but Piper stared after him worriedly.

"He'll be fine." Nico walked over to Piper and sat beside the kids, his form looking more solid than usual. He closed his eyes before looking up at her. "Are you okay?" His neck looked worse than usual, the purple skin raw and bleeding. He looked sick and worn, he looked...dead. The poor boy looked as if his death was painful and gruesome, like he had suffered and suffered until his last breath. Piper saw him for what he truly was━dead━and wished she could go back to the late night talks over coffee. That Nico had been so much more inviting.

"I'm okay," she managed, giving him a small smile. "Just worried about the storm and all, hoping that Jason will get back down here soon. It sounds really bad out."

"He isn't stupid. If he needs to be down here, he will." Nico promised. He rubbed at his neck uncomfortably, closing his eyes a little while doing so.

"Are you okay?" Piper asked after a minute. "You look...different."

Nico let out a soft laugh. "That's a way to put it. Yeah, I'm fine. Storms seem to...heighten the paranormal, you could say. They give me more substance. I don't know why, and I don't really like it. But it is how it is."

"I think it would have been better for Jason to see you some other time, when it isn't storming," Piper admitted. "I'm not trying to be rude, but I think it scared him a little, to be honest."

"I was planning for that, but you two were fighting." Nico looked down at his feet as he tapped them against the floor. "I don't like seeing you two fight, and neither do the girls."

Piper leaned her head on his shoulder, smiling when he felt as solid as anyone else. "You're a good kid, Nico. Not like how I pictured a hundreds-year-old ghost."

"Thanks?" Nico looked to the girls, finding Maddie asleep again and Katie playing with a doll.

Piper also looked at the girls, her smile faltering. "Maddie's been sleeping a lot lately..."

"I'm sure she's fine." Nico brushed it off quickly. "She seems healthy to me."

"Yeah..." Piper didn't seem to believe him.

"Do you want me to go talk to Jason?" Nico asked. "Because I can. I can check up on him and clear the air."

Piper moved her head off his shoulder so he could get up. "Yeah, that'd be good. Thank you, Nico."

He winked at her before disappearing from her sight, leaving her alone in the dimly lit basement with only her two daughters for company.

"Momma?" Katie looked up at Piper, wrapped in a blanket. "Why does Nico look so hurt?"

Piper looked down at Katie, sighing a little at the question. "He...he was hurt, Katie, and it still shows. But he's okay, don't worry. It's just going to show for a while."

"Who hurt him?" Katie asked, her lip trembling. "They hurt him really really bad..."

Piper pulled Katie close and kissed the top of her head. "I don't know who hurt him, Katie. He hasn't told me. Maybe you can ask him, hm?"

Katie nodded. "Is he okay upstairs with the storm?"

"He's bringing your dad back down so we're all safe," Piper explained. "So don't worry. Try to take a nap or something, okay?"

Katie laid her head on Piper's shoulder, her blue eyes watching the staircase. She waited for her father, no doubt terrified that the storm would take him. Piper waited also but made sure Katie didn't notice.


	15. Chapter 15

Jason sat on the kitchen island, his eyes fixated on the stain on the kitchen floor. It had been there since they moved in and looked suspiciously like a blood stain. He hadn't voiced his opinions to Piper, not having wanted to worry her. Now he couldn't help but think that he had been right.

The wooden floor looked to have been through a lot, with chips here and there and some other stains. But this one was large, oddly colored, and right next to the wall where the wallpaper seemed to come undone. Jason didn't move to look under the wallpaper, but he imagined there was another spot there.

Jason could feel Nico appear behind him, feel his presence and smell the blood that seemed to cling to him. To Jason, that was all Nico smelled like. The heavy, sticky, metal scented blood. It made him sick.

"Is that where you died?" Jason asked, not moving to look at the ghost. The storm kept raging outside, not stopping to see them settle their score. The lightning lit their faces up, lit up the stains, darkened the shadows. The thunder rumbled, the wind howled, a dog barked madly in the distance. Nothing seemed calm like it had been previously. "The blood stain. I'm guessing there's some behind that wallpaper, too, huh?"

He could hear Nico take a step towards him, his bare feet tapping against the floor. "No, that's not where I died. But someone did die there, actually."

Jason scowled, wrapping his arms around himself. "Someone else died in this house?"

"A whole lot of people did," Nico admitted. He pulled himself onto the island by Jason, his feet swinging out before him. "You've got hundreds of years of history here. There's going to be some deaths."

"Is there any other ghosts?" Jason refused to look at the boy he was talking to.

Nico looked down, remembering... "It's been only me in the house for awhile. But in the woods, there's Percy and Annabeth and their kids."

"Percy and Annabeth... Who are they?" Jason asked. "Should I be worried about them?"

Nico shook his head immediately. "No. Never. If anything, you should be thankful. They'll protect your kids from drowning."

Jason finally looked over to Nico, giving in to the fact that he was talking to a ghost, no matter how much he wanted to deny it. "You knew them?"

"They lived here. 90's, I think. Perfect family, happy. I was happy with them. Percy didn't look through the things I hid and Annabeth was an amazing mother to her kids. Plus all the buildings she designed... It was a shame she died before they were built. You know the town hall? She designed that. Pretty awesome, huh?"

"I guess," Jason admitted. "So...so their spirits are in the woods?"

Nico nodded.

"And your spirit is in here..." Jason told himself. "God, I can't believe this..."

"I wouldn't bring the man upstairs into this," Nico advised. "Wouldn't be such a smart thing."

"That reminds me," Jason went to make coffee but sighed when he realized he couldn't with the power out. "Why aren't you in like...Heaven or an afterlife or whatever... Is there not anything after death?"

"Oh, there is." Nico insisted. "There definitely is. You could just say I'm in my...purgatory. Or Hell. But the good spirits... Yeah, they're with the man upstairs."

Jason shivered as the wind blew a window open, rain pouring into the kitchen as if a dam had broken. Lightning flashed inward, flashing through Nico as if he was nothing more than air. The storm seemed to be even more frightening with the talk of Hell and spirits, but Nico seemed as comfortable as ever.

"Stupid windows," Nico commented as he watched Jason try to close it. "They do that all the time when the weather gets bad." The tornado alarm went off again, breaking through the cries of thunder. "Your wife is worried about you, you know."

"I'll be fine." Jason got the window closed with a grunt. "Damn that thing. I'll have to replace it."

"I'll have to replace this, I'll have to replace that." Nico mocked. "What aren't you going to replace?"

"I'm making the house safe for my family." Jason shot back. "And new windows will help me."

"Whatever." Nico got to his feet, his eyes on the chandelier above them. It started to swing as if responding to his look. "You go back downstairs. I'm done talking to you. Too tired."

"No, no, no." Jason went to Nico and grabbed his arm, smiling when he didn't go right through. "I still have a question for you."

"I don't care." Nico pulled away. "I'm done for today. And your wife is worried sick. You should really go downstairs."

"Not until I-" Jason didn't get to finish his sentence, Nico having disappeared from sight. He sighed in annoyance but hesitantly made his way back downstairs, swearing to ask Nico the next time he saw him. He had to. If he didn't know everyone in that house, he wouldn't know how to keep his kids safe.

And from hearing Nico speak, he knew there had been another ghost in that house.


	16. Chapter 16

The tornado warning lifted a couple hours later, when the sky had relaxed and the most threatening of clouds had passed on. Jason brought his family up from the basement before heading to town to see when the power would be back on, leaving Piper alone with the two girls. During the time Jason had been there, Nico hadn't made another appearance.

"Nico?" Piper led the little girls upstairs. "Where are you hiding? Jason said you were acting weird..."

He stayed silent, and when they got up to the third floor, the tapestry was once again covering the hallway to his room. Piper took the hint and went downstairs, but slid a plate of lunch underneath the tapestry when she was done making sandwiches for the girls. At this point, it seemed only fitting that Nico should also eat. He had drunken the coffee, so he should be able to.

Piper didn't want to admit it, but she started to think of the boy as another of her children.

Eventually, dinner came, and neither Jason or Nico was back. Piper sat at the dark table beside her daughters, watching them eat another put-together meal. The foods in the fridge were getting warm, meats were spoiling. The wood seemed to feel it was back in the times where it was first put in this house. It creaked and groaned with every movement someone took, and sometimes when nobody moved at all.

"Let's get you two to bed." Piper picked Maddie up and held a hand out to Katie. "Come on, everything will be better in the morning."

"Where's daddy?" Katie asked as they ascended the stairs. "And Nico?"

"Daddy's getting our lights to work," Piper explained as she entered her and Jason's bedroom. "Nico's being moody. Let's lay down together, okay? Cause Maddie gets scared easily in the dark."

"We'll help her." Katie agreed. "We get to lay in your bed?"

Piper nodded "Is that okay with you?"

Katie jumped on the bed, giggling as she sunk into the fine piles of blankets. "Come cover me up!"

Piper laid Maddie by Katie before setting pillows around the two girls. "You get some rest, okay?"

"What about you, momma?" Katie asked, letting her younger sister snuggle into her. "Aren't you laying down?"

"I'm gonna stay up to make sure daddy gets home," Piper explained. "If you try to go to bed, I'll read a story. Does that sound good?"

Katie nodded enthusiastically. "Next chapter in Magic Treehouse! Please?!"

"Okay, okay." Piper kissed her forehead. "Don't wake your sister up, that won't be good." She got the book from Katie's room before sitting beside them on the bed, starting to read about Jack and Annie's adventures throughout time. Katie listened to her favorite story before falling asleep beside Maddie, her soft breathing the only thing showing Piper that the little girl was still alive.

When she was sure they were asleep Piper got into the shower and washed off the day, one hand resting against the cold tiles as she let the hot water run over her tired shoulders. Her muscles relaxed, her eyes closed, and she let the water take away all her anxieties over Jason and Nico.

Piper had been in the shower for a good twenty minutes when the bathroom door opened, causing her head to snap around. Through the shower curtain, she could see someone standing by the door. The man was taller than Nico, shorter than Jason, and seemed to just stand still.

"Hello?" Piper squeaked over the wind coming through the cracked window. "Who are you? You...you shouldn't be here..."

The man didn't answer, didn't move a muscle. She could see his silhouette, see his hand move to close the door behind him so they'd be the only two in the room...

"NICO!" Piper backed up against the cold tiles and covered herself with her arms, calling on the only one that she could possibly think of. "NICO!? NICO!"

A second after the scream, she watched the man disappear into absolute nothingness. Her brain froze when she realized it had been a ghost, realized that something was in the house and wasn't Nico...

Piper got dressed faster than she had before in her life, throwing the nightgown on before sprinting out of the bathroom. Her two girls were how she left them on the bed, sound asleep despite her screams of terror. Jason didn't seem to be back yet, and nothing else seemed disturbed.

"What's happening to me..." Piper sunk onto the bed with a hand on her forehead, tears starting to worm their way down her cheeks. "I couldn't have made that up...I couldn't have..."

Nobody answered, but she could feel Nico's presence in the room, listening, watching, protecting.

That was the only thing that got her to sleep that night.


	17. Chapter 17

The next morning, Piper woke up to the power working and Jason asleep next to her. The girls must have been back in their room, the bed being empty besides her and her husband. Piper moved a little before kissing his cheek, talking to wake him up. "Jason..."

Jason groaned before cracking an eye open, his eyelashes crusted from the allergy season. "What...? What time is it?"

"I wanted to talk to you." Piper wrapped the blanket around her as a draft passed through the old room. "You got the power to work, I see."

Jason nodded as he closed his eye again. "Got back at like midnight last night, moved the girls to their room."

"Jason." Piper snapped in front of his face. "Wake up, we're talking."

Jason's eyes opened. "Hm?"

Piper sighed. "You're hopeless. I was trying to tell you something."

"Can't it wait until later?" Jason grumbled. "I'm tired and I have to get up for work in like fifteen minutes..."

"You're late, actually," Piper admitted. "Your alarm went off and woke me up."

Jason groaned in protest before rolling off the bed, landing in a heap of twisted limbs and blankets. He laid face down for a minute before sitting up, rubbing at his face to try and get the feeling back into it. "I'm up, I'm up."

"Good." Piper kept back a giggle at his movements. "You okay there?"

Jason smiled at her as he stumbled to his feet. "Never better. Do you know where my work clothes are?"

"In the dryer," she answered. "But-"

"I'm late!" Jason called as he ran out of the room, jogging down the closest staircase. Piper sighed in annoyance but got up to get the kids, first going upstairs to stop at Nico's room. The tapestry was still up, but the empty plate sat in front of it from when she brought him lunch the day before.

"Thanks for laying it out for me, I guess." Piper picked the plate up, twitching in annoyance as her voice came out sarcastic. "I'll just be your maid from now on, okay?"

She took the plate with her as she woke the girls up before taking it downstairs to wash, keeping the girls close to her as they played. Katie sat on the kitchen floor with a game of marbles set out in front of her, and Maddie played with an old doll she had brought down with her. Piper did the dishes in silence, watching out the back window for anything suspicious.

"Mommy?" Katie looked up after a couple minutes, having a dark marble between her fingers. "Is there a new friend here?"

Piper slowly looked towards her daughter, the once bright day now ruined for her. "What do you mean?" A bird chirped loudly, but there were no other sounds.

"Another person like Nico," Katie replied. "I thought I saw him. Why hasn't he come out to play before?"

"Like Nico?" Piper turned the sink off and went to kneel beside her oldest daughter. "You mean a ghost?"

Katie nodded. "Like Nico. But he wasn't Nico. Why didn't Nico tell us about him? He looked so upset, I wanted to hug him. But he went bye bye."

"Maybe you should ask Nico." Piper insisted. "He'd love to answer you. Just call for him, I'm sure he'll hear."

"I thought you said he's being moody." Katie wondered. "What if he's too moody to talk to me?"

"He won't be, I promise." Piper gave her a small smile, knowing Nico would only answer to Katie if anybody. "So just ask. It can't hurt to try."

Katie nodded once before looking to the ceiling. "Nico?! I have a question!" No response, nothing changed. The air was stiff with summer heat and perspiration. "Nico?!"

She went to look at Piper in disappointment when Nico appeared on the island, kicking his bare feet like a child. "Katie, you okay?" He didn't look at Piper, didn't glance in her direction. All his attention was on that little girl.

"Nico!" Katie ran to meet him. "I'm scared!"

"Why are you scared?" Nico picked her up and set her beside him. "Are you okay?"

"There's another person like you," she explained, snuggling into his side. "He seems scary."

"He won't hurt you," Nico promised, petting her hair. "He's just...confused. He hasn't been able to be seen by people like you in lots of years."

"Why? Is he okay?" Katie immediately looked worried despite her barely knowing the unknown ghost. "Is he hurt?"

"He was hurt really bad when he was alive, but he isn't anymore," Nico admitted. "He usually doesn't have a lot of energy. But that storm pumped up his energy for a little bit. He'll disappear again soon."

"Why doesn't he say hi?" Katie asked. "He can be another friend!"

Nico moved a hand to her hair to ruffle it. "He's scared, Katie. He's scared of people like you. So's his girlfriend."

"People like me?" Katie looked down at herself. "But I'm not scary."

Nico laughed softly. "You're too little to understand. We know you didn't do anything wrong. But he's just scared."

"Can I try to make him not scared?" Katie asked. "And who's his girlfriend? Is she here?"

Nico nodded. "But she's also scared. So if you see her, you have to be really nice, okay?"

Katie smiled. "Okay! Where can I find them?"

"They'll come to you," Nico promised. "Okay? Just remember to be nice when they do."

Katie nodded. "Okay, I promise."

Nico smiled at her. "Just yell if you need me, okay? I'm going to go lay down."

Katie pouted immediately. "Whyyyyyyyy?"

Nico sighed. "I've been in a bad mood, I'm sorry. I just get this way sometimes."

"Will you go back to normal soon? Momma missed you." Katie replied. "And daddy's been trying to talk to you."

"I'll be normal soon." Nico smiled. "Hey, how about I eat dinner with you tonight?"

Her eyes lit up. "Yes, please!"

"Okay, I'll be here for dinner," Nico promised before disappearing, leaving nothing to even show he had been there in the first place.


	18. Chapter 18

Keys rattled outside the door before Jason made his entrance, stepping into the parlor as if he was stepping over a minefield. He looked around once before heading to Piper, his work clothes wrinkled and dirty. "Pipes, I have something to tell you."

Piper waited until he walked into the room before looking over, having been hanging a picture frame on the living room wall. A nice breeze came into the house, dulling the heat of summer by a good ten degrees. She was wearing a nice tank top and shorts, feeling better about the new ghost (which she thought to be a pervert) now that Nico had talked to Katie. If she was right, the new ghost was more afraid of her than she was of him.

"I talked to Nico yesterday." Jason started, setting his bag by the couch. "He said...he said something strange, made me think that we aren't alone here."

"Of course we aren't alone here, Jason." Piper laughed. "When were we ever?"

"I mean besides Nico." Jason corrected himself. "Like another ghost. You should have heard him, Pipes, he-"

"You're right." Piper broke in. "Nico just talked to Katie about it. There's two other ones, actually. They're dating."

Jason threw his hands up in surrender. "This is never going to end!"

"What? Ghosts?" Piper asked.

"New ones, changes. Something else to worry about." Jason started to pace. "Have you met them?"

Piper shook her head, deciding not to tell him about the bathroom. "Nope."

"What did Nico say to Katie about them?" Jason asked. "Did he say we can trust them?"

Piper smiled. "What, you trust Nico's opinion, now?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "Answer the question, Piper."

"He said they're fine. They're scared of us." Piper shrugged. "Don't worry about it. It'll be fine."

"Yeah, sure," Jason replied sarcastically. "Two ghosts are fine."

Piper rolled her eyes and headed towards the kitchen. "I need to start dinner."

"Wait," Jason followed her. "Where're the girls?"

"Playing in the backyard," Piper responded. "Don't worry, Jason."

"You're always saying that." he peaked outside to check on the girls. "But you never even take it seriously yourself."

"Oh my god, you're defensive today." Piper shook her head. "Just go sit down." She got a couple pans out before starting dinner, filling the room with the smell of chicken.

Jason opened the back door, watching his kids. "Piper...we've been arguing so much lately..."

"You always start it, Jason." Piper agreed. "And it's always about our ghosts."

"Well, not many people just say 'our ghosts'," Jason argued. He then sighed, letting his anger drain out of him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Piper. I'm just so stressed."

"I know, but you don't need to be." Piper moved to kiss his cheek before going back to the stove. "Nico said we can trust them."

"Did he say who they are or how they died?" Jason asked. "Because that'd be helpful."

Piper shook her head. "Ask him at dinner. He's coming down. He promised Katie."

"Okay, I will." Jason leaned against one of the counters. "I'm going to go work on the outside of the house. It's not too hot outside."

Piper nodded. "Okay. I'll bring you a cold drink soon. Oh, and ask the girls if they want to come in and get a drink. They've been out there for awhile."

Jason did as he was told before getting his toolbox, heading for the old barn in the distance. He hadn't been inside it yet and wanted to see if it was safe and in working condition. The red slanted building looked to be as old as the house, with a door that was falling off the hinges and broken slabbed windows. Weeds and moss grew over it, covering most of the red with the green only seen in shrubbery.

"Looks like a damn disappointment." Jason sighed, edging the door open with his foot. "Probably full of spiders and rats and..." His train of thought stopped when he saw around the back of the barn, saw the door almost completely hidden by the structure of the barn and the plants that labeled it as their own. It was wedged open and revealed a staircase going into the earth, dark against the pale sun.

"Damn..." Jason glanced back to where his girls were playing before getting his phone out, turning the flashlight on. "Let's see what's down there-"

"Jason!" Piper called from the house, her head sticking out of the back door. "Leo's here!"

Jason stopped in his tracks before turning to look at Piper, making sure she couldn't see the odd staircase behind him. "Send him out here for me?! Thanks! And tell him to bring his toolbox!"

His flashlight flickered in the eerie shadows, his heart sped up as he waited for Leo. For the first time, he wished Nico was with him. Having a ghost on your side could never be a bad thing.

"What are you doing on here?" Leo questioned as he walked up, his heavy boots murdering the dry grass beneath his feet. Everything around the barn, including the plants that grew on it, seemed to be dead or dying. "It's hot as hell."

"If it was so hot, why did you leave your air conditioning to come here?" Jason smirked.

Leo sighed. "Had a fight with Calypso. Had to get out of the house. So, what are you doing out here?"

Jason moved aside so Leo could see the door and staircase behind him. "Exploring that. You in?"

Leo grinned. "You bet."


	19. Chapter 19

The smell of wood was seriously starting to get on Jason's nerves. The moist wood panels, the dry wood panels, the wood panels that hadn't seen human life in centuries. It all shared a distinct quality that he'd never be able to get out of his nose.

That staircase had that smell but also shared an even worse smell if Jason had ever seen one. The rotting, decaying stench of something, somewhere, right below their feet. It made him want to gag in the dimly lit space.

"An animal must have died down there." Leo had the top of his shirt covering his nose. "Absolutely stinks. Wonder what this was used for?"

"Just keep being careful of your steps," Jason instructed. "If you fall and break your neck, I'm leaving your body here."

"Haha," Leo rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to fall down these steps. You're the one that doesn't do well with steep-...told you." He watched as Jason missed his step and after a frozen minute, went tumbling down the stairs into complete darkness.

Leo let the dust settle before calling down to him, staying in safety where Jason had once stood. "You okay down there?!"

Jason groaned, having fallen face first into...something. He could feel the wood beneath his arms, see the pale light from where Leo held the flashlight high on that staircase, but could feel...something against his face. The stench was almost unbearable, having gotten five times worse after his fall.

Jason refused to admit it, but he had felt a push.

"Leo, bring the light!" Jason rolled onto his back, wincing when he moved his shoulder. "I think I popped something out of place..."

Leo stomped down the stairs, his heavy boots echoing. "Your own fault. You jinxed yourself." He got to the bottom of the staircase and felt around the wall for a light switch, smiling in victory when he found it. "Let's see if this place connects to your electric grid."

He flipped the switch up, illuminating the cavernous room in the dull light only made from old-fashioned machinery. As he did, Jason turned his head to see when he had landed on, curious to see what kind of animal corpse he had destroyed with his weight.

Leo would always tell the story as Jason has screamed like a child, but Jason would never admit such a thing. But Leo himself almost screamed, almost screamed at the sight of that decaying body.

That human body.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Piper was doing the dishes when she felt that familiar chill run down her spine, felt that someone else was in there with her. She expected to see Nico as she turned around, but instead, she was met with a young girl around Nico's age. Her dark skin was see-through, her bare feet didn't seem to touch the ground. She wore a long, brown dress full of holes and an apron that was covered in what looked to be blood. She was standing half behind the doorframe to the dining room, her face half covered but recognizably full of fear.

"...Hi..." Piper turned the sink off, her movements slow and careful. "My...my name's Piper. What's your name?"

One of the girl's feet moved back a step before she looked back at Piper, seeming to calm when she saw no anger. "Hazel... Hazel Levesque, ma'am."

Piper smiled. "You don't have to call me ma'am. It's nice to meet you."

Hazel smiled, a hand moving to push some hair behind her ear. "You, too, ma-...Piper."

Piper smiled back at her before holding a hand out. "Come in. I'm guessing you're who Nico told us about?"

Hazel watched Piper for a good minute before taking her hand, stepping into the brightly lit kitchen. "Y-Yeah, I am. I'm sorry for...for not showing up a lot. I don't like to. Only Nico has that kind of energy. But the storm...it really kick-started me and Frank, for some reason."

"May I ask why only Nico has energy all the time?" Piper questioned. "I mean, I know nothing about this stuff, but it seems weird how only he does."

"I don't know much, either," Hazel admitted. "But I think...I think it has something to do with how he died."

"How he died..." Piper looked into the sink, looked into the sink used by generations and generations of different people. So much history, so much in just a simple object. The birds she heard? The same sounds were probably heard by Nico's family and Hazel's family and whoever Frank was. The same floor was walked across, the same noise of crickets was heard during the nights.

"He killed himself." Hazel had backed up again, her hands clasped together in a form of prayer. "Hung himself...he hung himself in the attic... Don't tell him I told you that, okay? Don't tell him..."

Piper looked up to meet Hazel's eyes, looked up to meet the eyes of a terrified girl. "Hazel...don't be scared. You shouldn't be scared of anything. Can...can I hug you? You look like you need a hug."

Hazel's smile came back, yet this time hiding the tears. "That's...that's okay..."

Piper wrapped her arms around the teenage girl and brought her close, rubbing her back in comfort. "Don't be scared. You have nothing to be scared of, I promise."

"I know, I know. Times have changed." Hazel gripped onto Piper's shirt. "Those people...Annabeth...she told me that. But it's still so hard to believe."

"Well, I can assure you that you don't have to worry," Piper promised. "And my kids can't wait to make another friend."

Piper let her go, wiped her eyes. "Okay?"

Hazel nodded. "Okay."

They were silent for a minute as Piper began the dishes again, this time quickly so that she could use them for dinner. Looking out into the backyard, Katie was helping Maddie onto a swing. Jason and Leo were nowhere in sight, so she assumed they had gone into the barn.

"Hazel?" Piper looked back over to her. "May I ask...at what time...you lived?"

Hazel looked down. "If you're asking if I was a slave at this house, the answer is yes. Frank was, also."

Piper frowned. "Did...Annabeth...explain how everything has changed?"

Hazel nodded. "She did, she did. And I know I shouldn't be scared."

"But I can see why you are, now." Piper agreed. "Are...are you scared of Nico? You seemed to be for a second."

"Not any more than I am of you." Hazel shrugged. "He's really nice, like you. He likes to help out. He helped me when I...when I was living."

Piper turned the sink off just as Jason's scream was heard. She frowned, glancing at Hazel in confusion. "Do you know what he's screaming about?"

Hazel was almost fully gone by then, barely visible as she stood where the dust floated in the sunlight. She nodded once, tears making their way down her cheeks. "He found me...someone finally found me."

And then she was gone, the kitchen was again empty besides Piper.


	20. Chapter 20

"Piper, I can't do this, I can't do this..." Jason paced back and forth, in a side room on the first floor. They had the door closed, not wanting their voices to reach the kids.

"We get to put someone at rest," Piper argued. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"I found a body!" Jason's hands moved with his words. "I found a body! A decaying body! In my barn! What if one of the kids found it? They'd be scarred for life!"

"They wouldn't have been back there!" Piper yelled back. "You know this! Is this really worth getting into a fight over?!"

"This is the same fight we've been having for weeks! It's never gone away." Jason paced back and forth, a hand on the mantle of the old fireplace. The room looked to have been some kind of den, the wallpaper red and the floor carpeted. Two chairs sat in front of the fireplace and a desk faced the large windows, papers and books still scattered across it.

"Well, that I can agree on." Piper huffed. She sat in the desk chair, her hand on her stomach, pressed against the constant churning. "This house has made you an ass."

Jason rolled his eyes. "Now we're name calling?"

"You know you want to."

"I know what I want! You don't!" Jason grabbed the poker from the fireplace and used it to stab at the burning wood. "I want out of this damn house! I don't want to find bodies! I don't want to see things moving! I don't want to hear voices and see shadows and I don't want to hear about who's buried on our land!"

"Too fucking bad." Piper got up, her face pink. "I'm done, Jason. I'm done. If you don't want to live here then I'm not stopping you. Go. But me and my girls are staying here."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nico looked up when he felt Hazel's presence, having been reading an old book he found in one of Piper's boxes. The teenage girl was standing by the door, her face wet with tears and her hands shaking at her sides. When she saw Nico's peaceful look, she took another couple steps into the room. "N-Nico?"

Setting the book on his bedside table, he gestured her into the room. "What's up? Did you talk to them?"

Hazel nodded. She took a minute of hesitation before sitting next to him on the bed, her head resting on his shoulder. "I talked to Piper. She's nice. But then...then..."

"Then?" Nico prompted.

"That man. Jason. He found my body." Hazel burst into tears. "Someone finally found it."

Nico rubbed her arm with his thumb, keeping her close to him. "That's good, that's good... Maybe they'll give you a burial, hm?"

"But what if they don't?" Hazel retorted. "What if they throw it in the lake o-or burn it? I don't want to be burned."

"I'm not going to let them burn it," Nico promised. "Just let me talk to them. It'll be okay."

"And...and...I may have told her a secret..." Hazel mumbled. "I'm sorry..."

Nico glanced down at her. "A secret?"

She nodded.

"About my death?"

She nodded again. "I'm sorry."

Nico sighed. "It's not your fault. They'd find out soon enough. I just...I just didn't want to talk about it with her. You know? It's hard to actually talk about it."

Hazel hummed in agreement, her eyes closing as peace settled over her. "It's so hard to remain visible to them..."

Nico listened to her humming for a long while, his eyes closed and his soul at peace. He felt light, lighter than usual, and the constant smell of blood went away for the time being. Something about Hazel always made him lighter, but he wasn't sure what.

"You know what?" Nico started, catching her attention again. "I think...once they get your body buried...you may be able to...move on."

Hazel took a sharp breath before letting it out again, not letting herself get worked up. She didn't have the energy. "You think so?"

Nico nodded. "You and Frank could go together, now that you could both be at rest. You two could go."

Hazel smiled. "I think you're right. But...what about you? You'd be here all alone..."

"I'll be fine," Nico promised. "I've got Piper and Jason, right?"

Hazel nodded. "That you do."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jason stared at the stirring wheel of his car, stared at what he held in his hands. What was he doing? He knew he couldn't leave Piper, knew he couldn't leave his kids, knew he couldn't leave his family behind. But he needed to cool down, get away, take a break.

But how, when the one he wanted to take a break with was the one he needed to take a break from?

Late in the night, he drove back to his house with his head down. He knocked on that old door, knocked on the door he used to open with his key. Piper answered it with a robe wrapped tight around herself, Nico standing behind her as if he was there to protect her.

"Pipes," Jason started, his hands in his pockets. "I...I'm sorry..."

Piper helped him inside before closing the door, her eyes watering. "Be quiet, the kids are sleeping. I'm just glad you came to your senses. We need...we need to talk, with Nico and Hazel. We need to figure all of this out."

Jason laid his head on his shoulder, took in the smell of her hair. "Yeah, that we do."


	21. Chapter 21

Jason and Piper sat on one couch, Nico and Hazel sat on the other. The coffee table between them was set with cups of coffee and some snacks, but nothing was touched. Nico sat with his knees to his chest and his eyes downcast, while Hazel gripped onto his arm as if he'd be the only one in the room to protect her. Piper could feel another presence in the room but decided not to comment. Not yet, anyway.

"So, let's all start from the beginning." Piper offered. "Does that sound good to everyone?"

Jason and Nico nodded, while Hazel gave her a small smile and a "yes, ma'am." Once everybody had consented, Piper spoke again. Spoke of everything her and Jason had been through.

"We met in highschool." she started, her hand gripping onto her husband's. "We got married right after. We were tight on money, so we got a small apartment. We had our two kids, Katie and Maddie. My mom is an actress but I don't speak to her, and my dad is an actor (that I also don't speak to)."

"My dad is dead." Jason continued. "Died when I was a kid. I have an older sister, Thalia, that lives about an hour away. She helps take care of my mom. My mom and I...aren't on a good basis. She claims she's a physic and I never believed in this stuff growing up."

Nico snorted in amusement. "How perfect."

Jason glared at him. "Your turn, old man."

Nico glanced from Piper to Jason before clearing his throat. Hazel gripped his hand to let him know that she was there, to let him know that she was his support. Once she did, Nico started the old tale that he had kept inside him for so long.

"My parents, my sister and I moved here from Italy when I was a toddler." Nico started. "My...my mom died...when I was four... My sister died later, from a sickness that had been going around. I...I killed myself when I was seventeen, in the attic. My father died a couple years after I did. After that...it was lonely until the slave owners moved in. Brandt Newport moved in here with his wife, son, and his slaves in the early 1800s. That forest back there was farms."

Hazel peeked her head up as the time period came to her living period. "I...I was one of his slaves, a house slave. My mother was sold off and my father was beaten to death. His son...Frank...I fell in love with Frank..." She looked up towards the corner of the room, towards where Piper felt another presence. "And he found us one day...and...I woke up as I am now, and Frank woke up with me."

"After slavery became illegal and that man's heritage moved out and everything, the house was left for ruin for awhile." Nico picked the story back up. "The forest grew, Hazel and Frank got weaker, everything got...darker. Then Percy and Annabeth moved in with their kids, in the 1990's, I think."

"They drowned in the lake in the forest," Jason remembered. "There was a lake in farmland?"

"The farmland was around it, I think." Nico looked thoughtful. "I don't know. I couldn't see much from inside here."

Jason nodded. "And those have been the only owners?"

Nico nodded. "Yep. Me, Hazel, and Frank are all alone here. Percy and Annabeth have their family in the woods. But they're still there."

"Okay..." Jason had seemed calmer now, now that he knew everything. All he had ever wanted was the facts so that he could keep his family safe. "May I...may I ask...whose body...we found in the stairs and barn thing...?"

Hazel raised her hand. "M-Me."

Jason nodded, his face calm as he looked at her, knowing very well that she didn't deserve to be scared. "What do you want us to do? Bury or something?"

"My grave's still back there." Nico pipped in. "They took my gravestone out during the slave area, but Percy was nice enough to put a new one in."

"That's...nice." Jason looked back to Hazel. "Whatever you want, we'll do it. Just name it."

Hazel smiled a soft, sad smile. "Thank you, Jason. I would...I would appreciate being buried by Frank. He's in the cemetery down the road."

"Okay, I'll take care of it," Jason promised. "Don't worry about it."

For the first time, Hazel wasn't worrying, wasn't sad, wasn't scared. She was finally happy. When Jason buried her body, when she and Frank felt as light as a feather, they floated up and away from the dark, blood-stained home. They finally moved on to where the good spirits went.


	22. Chapter 22

Everything was fine, everything was going okay. Nico lived alongside Piper and Jason, lived happily for the first time in years. It was nice to be part of a family, a family that actually loved each other. It was a dream come true.

But everything must pass, including the happiness. All nights end and the sun will rise, but the sun will also eventually set, even on the brightest of days.

The leaves had begun to fall from the trees when Jason got the phone call. Piper sat in the living room with her daughters, taught Katie how to read. Nico sat beside Maddie, stared at the soul he could pick up from within Piper's stomach. Jason got up to get his phone while it rang, standing in front of the open window as the leaves blew in.

The leaves, stinking of the arrival of Fall and the cold it would bring.

"Hello?" Jason plugged his other ear, Katie's voice filling the small room. "Thalia, what is it?"

Piper looked up from her lessons and watched Jason closely, the innocence of the day turning dark. "Jason, what is it?"

He unplugged his ear to hold a finger up to Piper, a scowl dampening his face. "Thalia..."

He stood there for a couple minutes before speaking again, his voice strained. "Fine, fine. I'll tell Piper." He hung up, tossed the phone onto the couch. "My mother is coming to visit."

Nico wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Why?"

Jason sighed. "Thalia told her I and Piper got a house. She wants to check it, make sure it's spiritually okay. She won't take no for an answer."

Piper got up to rub her husband's arm. "Don't get worked up. It'll be okay. We'll make a nice dinner, she'll sleep over, she'll go away. As simple as that."

Nico looked between them. "What about me?"

Jason looked down at Piper, ignoring Nico. "Are you sure it'll be okay? What if she goes crazy on the kids or something?"

"Hello?" Nico waved his hands in the air. "This lady is a psychic, isn't she?"

"She won't go crazy on the kids," Piper replied. "Okay? Just relax. When is she coming?"

"I'll scare her away." Nico offered.

"Tomorrow." Jason gestured to the house. "We have to clean and drive into town to get something for dinner. Thalia is coming, too. That's two extra people for dinner."

"Okay, the plan to scare her away is in motion." Nico continued.

"We'll make something easy..." Piper thought. "Chicken or something, mashed potatoes to go with it. Dessert, wine. She'll go to bed early and leave the next day. The kids will be napping a lot."

"Maybe I'll show her how I died..." Nico thought, a finger on his chin. "Or maybe I'll show her my bathtub. That should be enough to get her running out."

"Do you want to head to the store while I start cleaning?" Jason offered. "I won't know what to get."

Nico rolled his eyes. "Seriously, what do I have to say to get you to listen to me?"

Piper nodded. "Sure. Make sure to do the living room, kitchen, and bedrooms. Everything else should be fine."

Nico started to get annoyed, the fear that he was disappearing filling his chest. He needed to get their attention, needed them to listen to him.

"That's...a lot." Jason pouted.

"I know you can do it," Piper promised. "And the kids-"

"I killed my father!" Nico blurted out, his last secret crashing out of him from the fear that had taken over his soul. He stopped Piper mid sentence, stopped her train of thought, got her to look at him. Finally, they were looking at him. They could see and hear him.

"Excuse me?" Jason moved Piper behind him, moved the kids behind him. "What did you say?"

Nico crossed his arms. "You both were ignoring everything I said."

"We were in the middle of a conversation," Jason argued. "Now, explain what you said."

"There's nothing to explain." Nico shot back. "I killed my father, alright? He was a horrible man. One day I couldn't stand him being here anymore. A knife hit his chest, hit his heart. He bled out in the kitchen."

Jason's face turned furious. "So when you get sick of us, you'll just throw a knife at our hearts?"

Nico threw his hands up in exasperation. "It's not the same thing!"

"Yes, it is!" Jason took a step closer to him. "How can we trust you? Why haven't you told us before?"

"Because I knew you'd act like this! You go insane, Jason." Nico felt himself disappearing, felt himself reappearing in his room. "I knew it..."

With that, he was gone, gone from their sight and safe in his room. He locked the door, barricaded the door, kept to himself. He laid in that bathtub of blood, thought of all the times he had hurt himself in it.

He missed being able to bleed.


	23. Chapter 23

Jason's mom came the next day. Beryl Grace stepped out of the car, looked up at the house, looked into the dark windows and ominous rooms.

"Mom?" Thalia locked the car, waved to Jason who stood by the front door. "Come on, let's go inside."

She led her to the house, led her to Jason. Jason's eyes were full of anxiety, full of the storm prickling on the horizon. "Mom, Thalia..."

"Jason," his mother stepped up to hug him. He let her but never hugged back. "I missed you."

"Yeah, me, too," Jason mumbled. "Let's get inside."

She let him go and looked up at the house again, a frown evident on her face. "I feel...something..."

"That's nice." Jason gestured to the open door. "Come on, mom. Let's get inside. Dinner is almost done."

"Dinner? My lord, Jason, it's only five o'clock." Beryl moved towards the house, hesitantly stepped over the threshold. "You can't rush my visit, Jason, even if you wanted to."

Thalia followed, giving Jason a look to be nice. "He's not trying to rush you, mom. He just doesn't want talk of...spirits. He doesn't want it to scare his kids."

"Oh, I'd never say anything in front of them." Beryl denied, but Jason remembered his frightened childhood. "Where are they, anyway?"

"Piper's in the kitchen." Jason closed the door and locked it. "Maddie's taking a nap and Katie's in the back."

He led them to the living room, making sure to keep them to the least amount of rooms as possible. "Can I trust you in here while I go talk to Thalia?"

Beryl sighed. "Jason, Jason. Yes, you can. You go talk to your sister about me behind my back, now."

"I'm not going to talk to you behind your back, mom." Jason led Thalia away, having the decency to lie. "You just rest after that long trip, okay?"

He led Thalia to the side room that had once been an office. The wood creaked beneath their feet, an eerie sense told them that they shouldn't be there, that that wasn't their room, that they shouldn't be able to read the papers that were still in there. Jason ignored the feeling and sat in a chair in front of the fireplace, having no doubt that Nico had been the one causing it.

Thalia sat beside him and kicked her feet out on the coffee table. "Could you be any meaner to her?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "Hello to you, too."

"I gave up a good thing to take care of her," Thalia argued. "She's our mother."

"I know, I know." Jason sighed. "I just...can't forget my childhood, Thalia. I don't know how you do."

"I never forgot," Thalia replied. "I just...forgave. I forgave her, Jason, when I realized when she saw was real. All my anger went towards our father for leaving her alone. Leaving her alone with children like that. She loved us. She tried her best."

"What do you mean, you saw it was real?"

Thalia spread her hands. "Remember the one she always talked about? Ethan? I saw him, late one night. Saw him pacing the hallway." She shivered. "I'll never forget that, Jason, whether you believe me or not."

"I believe you," he admitted. "Everything in my life lately...I believe you."

Thalia frowned deeply. "Don't tell me...?"

"That this house is as haunted as hell?" Jason laughed. "Three cheers! You answered correctly!"

Thalia groaned loudly. "Noooooo..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beryl moved a hand over the walls as she walked, her footsteps light against the wooden floor. The wallpaper was smooth but sticky, smelling as if the red was really made from blood. She was on the third floor, where she felt the most energy. She needed to make sure her son was safe, needed to make sure her grandchildren were safe.

Every few seconds, she'd get a flash of another life, of a life a boy lived long ago. She saw his parents, saw his mother's death, saw the moment he hurt himself for the first time. Before her eyes, she saw his life play out in front of her. And according to his energy, he didn't even realize.

"Poor boy," she murmured, a hand clenching her heart. "Poor boy...stuck alone, for all eternity. Why don't you cross over?"

His energy stirred, his spirit was attracted to her. He had heard her.

"I could help you," she continued. "You'll be all alone for eternity. One day, Jason will die. And so will Piper and their kids. You'll be left alone, again, left to roam these empty halls until they finally tear this place down. And what then? What will you do? Roam the ruins that you can never escape from?"

A door slammed beside her, sending a clear message. GET OUT.

Beryl being Beryl, she didn't listen. "I know you're lonely, Nico. I know it. Let me help you cross over."

His energy became restless, started to pulsate with anger. The temperature started to drop, the lights flickered and went out. In the dull gloom of the hallway, she could hear the heavy footsteps come closer to her. She remembered her childhood, remembered her marriage, knew that this wasn't uncommon, knew she couldn't bow down to fear from a boy that'd never hurt her.

"You'd go to Heaven." she continued. "You could see your mother, see your sister, see-"

The glass in all the windows shattered, broke with such a large explosion that it was as if a bomb had been dropped. Piper immediately jumped over Katie to cover her from the glass, but nobody had been in the room with Maddie. As Jason ran out to see what was wrong, he could start to hear her loud sobs.

He'd never forgive Nico, whether he meant to hurt her or not.


	24. Chapter 24

The nearest hospital was thirty minutes away and seemed to be the most rundown of all. Nico had succeeded in getting Beryl out of the house, but she only went to make sure her granddaughter was okay. She blamed herself, whether if it was her fault or not.

Beryl and Thalia watched Katie in the waiting room so Jason and Piper could stay with Maddie, the doctors having taken her to a back room to stitch up. She was covered in glass, all over her arms and legs. A large chunk had embedded itself in her check, half in her eye. They didn't think she'd ever see again from that side.

When they finally came home with a sleeping Maddie and a furious Jason, Nico was nowhere in sight. They couldn't feel him, couldn't sense him, couldn't physically get to his bedroom. Jason was fine with that, but Piper wanted to talk to the younger boy. What had set him off?

Maddie's eye stayed bandaged for a month. A month of wishing and hoping that she'd be able to use it again someday. After the month was over, however, they took the bandages off. Maddie would have to get used to seeing only half of the world, get used to something horrible at such a young age. But she wasn't in much pain and she still had her other eye, so she seemed happy enough. But it killed her parents to see her that way.

Winter was approaching with a swirl of cold air and snow storms. The wind never let up, the fires never died down. They kept heat to the old house and provided light, but filled the building with an odd sense that they were stuck in the past. It flickered against the walls, created shadows in the thin light. They moved and danced around, they bounced from wall to wall. Nobody liked to be alone.

It was dark outside and the snow was coming down when Beryl finally came back to visit. Thalia refused to leave her mother's side this time, but the woman knew exactly what she needed to do. She was going to talk to Nico, even if the teenager hadn't shown himself to anyone in months. She needed to. Deep in her soul, she knew it was her that would have to.

Jason opened the door but didn't make a noise of opposition. He nodded once to her before gesturing her inside, giving a soft warning of where the girls were and not to bother them with it. They didn't need any more drama in their lifetimes.

Beryl promised she wouldn't go near them before descending the steps, her small heels clicking against the wooden stairs. A thud here, a thud there, noises began from the third floor. She kept going, however, knowing very well why Nico was nervous. He knew why she was there. They all did. It was time.

"Nico di Angelo," she got to the third floor and walked towards his room, Jason following behind as if he was there to guard her. "Come on, Nico, it's time. We both know so. You've finally seen why it isn't good that you're here."

The snow started to fall heavier, the wind screamed and howled.

"Nico," Jason spoke up, his hand resting on his mother's shoulder. "It's time. You'll get to see your mother and sister again. You'll go where Hazel and Frank went."

The wind was so loud it sounded as if it was indoors, as if it was passing through the very halls Nico had been wandering for centuries. Floorboards creaked, windowpanes rattled.

"Nico..." Beryl closed her eyes and gripped onto the Bible she had brought. "Come closer, Nico. I know you're watching, I know you're peaking around that corner. Come closer."

Closer, closer, the wind came closer. Their hair blew around and the cold leaked into their bones. Jason could finally sense Nico, feel his presence near them. He had come closer. His sadness and guilt were leaking into the hallway, leaking into the two humans that stood there.

"I hurt her..." Nico's voice chilled the air and stopped the wind in its tracks. "I'm sorry, I never meant to. I never meant to hurt anybody."

"The longer you stay here, the more people you'll hurt," Beryl replied. "You know this, Nico. You know this. The only way to help Maddie now is to move on."

Footsteps in the hall, boards creaking underneath. Spiders scattered from the area.

"I'm scared," Nico's voice came right over Jason's shoulder. "Scared I'll go to Hell."

"You won't know until you move on." Beryl turned to the sound of his voice. "Come on, come on. Time's still going on, full speed ahead."

A hand on Jason's shoulder, a pale boy and a pale soul. He stepped forward, looked into Jason's eyes, held centuries full of guilt and pain. "I'm sorry...about your little girl...tell them I said sorry."

Jason stared at him, stared into that wounded soul. "You're moving on?"

"I'm going to try."

"Good for you," Jason looked to his mother. "How do we do this?"

She gave him a sad smile. "It's all up to Nico now, Jason."


	25. Chapter 25

"Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away."-Marcus Aurelius

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lightness, peace...finally...peace...so much peace...

Finally, peace.

The sin of the world was finally out of sight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Piper didn't want to admit it, but losing Nico felt like losing a child. That pain deep in your chest, the pain that brought tears so raw you wouldn't be able to see in weeks. The pain of knowing that you'd never see someone again. The pain of knowing that somewhere, that person that you love is on their own and you can't do a damn thing about it. That pain, the pain that ran deep into your soul, the pain that scarred you for life.

Without Nico, life was dull. For the first time, it felt like Nico was truly dead. It didn't feel like he was someone living in their house anymore. No more making dinner for an extra person, no more having someone to rock Maddie to sleep. No more games of marbles for Katie. No more talks in the kitchen over coffee.

Nights were spent lying awake, staring at the ceiling in the dark. She heard Jason breathing beside her, heard the lake's waters lashing at its shores. Every night, all she could think about was Nico. Was he okay? Was he happy? Where had he gone?

Had he really gone to Hell like he thought he would?

Years went by. She had her third child, a baby girl that was born prematurely but seemed to be fine. Nicole, Piper named her. Nicole Grace, after the boy that had forever changed Piper's life. Nicole brought happiness to a house that desperately needed life. A house that finally saw a life starting instead of a life ending.

But it wouldn't be the last time they heard of Nico di Angelo.

Piper was cleaning up a new room for Katie to move into when she found the piece of paper sticking out from under the old bedroom. Carefully to not destroy the old material, she placed it in her palm and read over the front of it. Sadly, she realized what it was halfway through.

_Dear anyone that finds it,_

_Ha! You're so far in the future that I'm dead. Are there aliens? Cooler cars? A cure for the plague?_

_If there is, then you're lucky. If I was born in your time, I'd probably survive. But dad says I probably won't make it to be a mother. I wish I could. Do you have kids? What are their names? I'll watch over from Heaven, don't worry._

_Love, an unknown Bianca di Angelo_

She showed it to Jason who wrote it off as nothing more than something from the past, something from someone that was dead and gone. Against his wishes, she kept it in a wooden box she had in the back of her closet. Usually, it only held her children's birth certificates and other important things. Now, it held something from Nico's older sister.

Piper had forgotten about the letter until a month later, the night before Nicole's first birthday. She found the letter laying in the middle of the hallway, covered in dust but never seen before. When she picked it up, this letter was addressed from Nico.

_Bianca! I learned to write now! Dad will never find us! Love you, Bianca! This is from Nico._

A smile tugged at her lips, happiness broke down the uneasiness that spread through her soul. Nico had been innocent once, after all.

The letters started to turn into warnings, however, a month later.


End file.
